Monroe Parenting

Keegan officially has been weaned off the bottle! I know I posted about a month or so ago that we were attempting to do this and trying different things, but I’ll be honest — I cracked. That’s right, the minute the wailing started I stuck a bottle in his mouth. I couldn’t take the crying!! Of course, it also didn’t help that I had major homework projects I was working on at the time, but I won’t use that as an excuse. The minute those big hazel eyes looked at me and started reaching for the top of the frig, I just couldn’t stop myself from giving him his “bub.”

So what changed? Well, I got fed up with washing multiple pairs of pajamas every night because Keegan was consuming too much liquid before bed. Good Night diapers didn’t help — he managed to soak right through those. The only thing that works is limiting his liquid intake, so that bottle had to go!

About a week ago we just went cold turkey. No more giving it to him only at night or in the morning with breakfast. No more letting him have a quick drink from it when he wakes up cranky from his nap. No, no, no. He was done. And the only way to accomplish that was to either leave the bottles at my mom’s so they were out of reach or to throw them away so the temptation to use them was gone.

But the fitful night I was expecting never came. In fact, Keegan seems to have been doing remarkable well without his bottle. Instead, he now clings to his blankies as his “security lovies” and gnaws on the corners of them. As far as I’m concerned, he can drag those things everywhere — as long as I no longer have to tote bottles with us!

It’s the return of our famous Friday night pizza playdates! This time, joining us was my friend Kristyn and her daughter Avari, who is 4 months old. Caitlyn enjoyed playing little mommy by fetching toys for the baby and singing to her, while Keegan was mostly indifferent to his little friend until it was time for them to go. He then crouched in front of the baby carrier and kept saying “Ba-beeee” while rocking the seat by holding onto the handle. Of course, he also wanted to swipe her binky and at one point tried to sneak a sip of her bottle, but that’s probably because he’s going through bottle withdrawal right now since he’s going cold turkey from it this weekend.

Here are some pictures from the playdate:

Caitlyn and Avari.

Another shot of the girls.

Caitlyn, the ginormous Keegan, and Avari — who looks like one of Caitlyn’s baby dolls!

Has anybody else got sucked into the Webkinz craze? No? Nobody? Is it just me?

Caitlyn won a Webkinz cow almost 2 years ago during a summer reading program. She carried “Moo” everywhere for awhile and eventually, he found a nice snug home in the toy box. Since I had never even heard of Webkinz at the time, I ripped the tag off the cow and threw it on my desk before handing Caitlyn her much-loved stuffy.

Since then, I have heard about the Webkinz Web site, but I figured it would be too much of a bother to hunt down the stupid tag just so I could punch in a code to access some kid site on the Net. But the other day I was sitting at my desk waiting for my online class stuff to boot and I started looking through my desk drawers to help pass the time. And lo and behold, there was Moo’s Webkinz tag, still encased in the plastic.

That very afternoon Caitlyn and I sat down in front of my computer, and officially “adopted” her Moo Cow. And that was the end of concentration as I know it. The site is almost like a version of the Sims, but with animals and it’s very kid-friendly.

Parents, if you are thinking of getting a Webkinz, just don’t do it. Do not be fooled by their lovable, plushy faces and soft furry bodies. Do not sit down in front of the computer and punch in that code on the Webkinz site — because at that point, either you and/or your child will not be able to stop visiting the site.

You will slowly start to lose track of time as you “help” your child play all the games. You will get sucked into finding ways for your pet to earn more Kinz Cash so that they can buy cooler things for their rooms and nifty clothes to wear. You will not be able to stop yourself from visiting the site at all hours of the day to see what new games are offered and what contests are coming up. Heck, you may find yourself playing the Cow Cash game while sitting at work instead of doing actual work. … Oh, wait, that’s just me.

Well, at least that’s what I thought around dinner time on Monday. I decided to feed the kids before Dave got home because it was about 5 o’clock and I could hear their little tummies rumbling. I had cooked up some homemade potpies for dinner, but after all my hard work I knew neither one of them would touch it. Well, I take that back — they’d touch it, but just long enough to make a giant mess, and none of it would go into their mouths or down their throats. So I started searching around frantically trying to think of what I could feed them that didn’t consist of noodles, chicken nuggets or pizza rolls.

The plan I came up with I’d like to think was rather genius: I made the kids “sausage faces.” I’ve often heard that it’s not only what you feed your kids, but how it looks that makes all the difference. I am now a firm believer in that!!!

The kids love sausages, but I wasn’t about to give them more when I knew they’d already had some for breakfast that day. So, instead, I found a bag of frozen meatballs in the freezer and cooked those up. Ordinarily, they both hate meatballs –won’t touch ‘em. So I knew I needed to get creative. (Okay, I’ll admit it — I even told a little white lie.)

I cut the meatballs up and passed them off as sausages. I used two whole meatballs for the eyes, a half of one for the nose and then tinier pieces of it to construct a smiley mouth.

I then used pieces of cut-up red pepper to make “rosy cheeks”, baby carrots made up the eyebrows and the finishing touch was yellow pieces of corn for the hair. I just sprinkled some on both sides of the eyebrows. The final result? A “sausage face”!

Both kids were completely delighted when they looked down at their plates and saw a smiley face smorgasboard! In fact, Caitlyn thought it was a hoot to “bite the dude’s eyebrows off” and threaten to “chew a hole in his eye.” I don’t think I had to remind or coax them at all to continue eating. They gobbled those faces up so that they could get to the next faze, which was “fruit faces” for dessert (same general idea except using blueberries, strawberries and bananas).

Perhaps tonight we will make some “veggie men” for them to munch!

Toasted peanut butter sandwiches, blueberries and turkey bacon — sometimes that’s as creative as dinner gets, especially after mommy finishes taking a grueling midterm exam!

Why Keegan and macaroni-and-cheese don’t mix:

My family went to Pete’s Garage in Monroe last night to celebrate my brother’s and Dad’s birthdays. Here are some fun pics from the party:

(Back row, from left): Me, my sister Lauren, and my sister Kendra

(In the front): Baby Victoria and Caitlyn

Me and Keegan (keep in mind that I’m halfway hopped up on happy pills here because of my neck!)

Dave, Caitlyn, Victoria and Keegan (who is trying his best to get out of that chair and run!)

Today’s my Dad’s birthday, but I’ll leave you guessing on how old he is….

I just wanted to wish him a happy, happy birthday! (Now I hope he’ll share some of his cake with me!! haha)

I’m sure this will be a Valentine’s Day that I won’t remember much of….Let me digress……

When I woke up on Sunday morning I couldn’t move my neck. It ached a bit and felt stiff. I thought that perhaps I had just slept on it wrong and that the kink would work its way out soon. Within a few minutes I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I went through the rest of the day without being able to turn my head to the right and by the time I got up the next morning I could hardly move it the other way either. I took some Ibpropin and tired to ignore the pain but it’s pretty hard to drive a car when you have to turn your whole body to the side just to see if any traffic is coming. And sitting in front of a computer at work is rough when you have to hold your head a certain way to see the screen.

Anyway, the pain was so intense yesterday (up and down both sides of my neck now) that I finally broke down and went to see the doctor. Turns out I have a viral infection that caused my neck to lock up. I can’t remember the exact name of it, but it’s something that won’t go away without treatment. Hopefully it’s nothing more serious than that, but I’ll be going in for a neck x-ray tomorrow and most likely will have to start physical therapy on Monday.

In the meantime, I’m hopped up on muscle relaxers and pain meds, so I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere or doing anything for Valentine’s Day. Heck, I’ll be lucky if I can stay awake until Dave gets home!!!

Since it’s so cold out, Caitlyn decided she wanted to play hide-and-seek inside the house. Now, our townhouse isn’t that big so there’s not too many places to hide. But I go along with it and Caitlyn starts counting while I’m ordered to go hide. The most logical place is in the bathtub behind the shower curtain so that’s where I stand and wait. I hear Caitlyn open the bathroom door, look in, see nothing and then move on. After quite a few minutes go by, she enlists Dave’s help to find me. Yes, I was so good at standing behind a curtain that I was unfindable!

When she finally does pull back the curtain, I jumped out and scared the bejebbers out of her and she screamed and laughed and laughed.

Okay, so now it was her turn to hide. I sat at my desk and started counting. By the time I got to four I could hear the bathroom door slam and giggling. When I got to 10 I started making my way toward the bathroom, but before I could even get there (and I could see the light on under the door), Caitlyn called out, “I’m in here!!! Come find me!!”

Perhaps someone needs to re-teach her the basic fundamentals of hide-and-seek!