2015 SeaWorld San Diego Preschool Pass

Whoohoo! The new registration for the SeaWorld San Diego Preschool Pass for 2015 is up and ready!

Kids ages 3-5 can enjoy big adventures at SeaWorld San Diego all year long!

You must complete the registration in order to obtain the FREE 2015 Preschool Pass. Registration ends March 13, 2015.

FIRST VISIT AND REDEMPTION MUST OCCUR BY MARCH 27, 2015!!

Offer valid for San Diego County residents only. To receive the FREE 2015 SeaWorld San Diego Preschool Pass, completed registration, and valid form of identification must be presented at the SeaWorld tickets & reservations desk. Acceptable forms of identification include a copy of a birth certificate or travel passport. Please note: school IDs or children security IDs will not be accepted.

Parents – Right now you can still take advantage of the Pay for 1 day, get all of 2015 free! Or Annual Pass deal: Buy one year, get one free!

Potty Training Followup Questions

I recently had a friend who was preparing to potty train his son. Referred him to my potty training post and he had obtained the same manual and read through it. He also loved the approach and said it was the best one they had read as they prepare to tackle this milestone soon. Here were some of the questions he had for me, and my responses. 🙂

• what type of reward system did you use? did you get one of those stars and day of the week thing? What did you reward your kids with if their diapers stayed dried? I don’t want to give him cookies all day or anything like a toy car. any good suggestions?
  I DIDN’T USE A REWARD SYSTEM FOR KEEPING THE UNDIES DRY… JUST A WHOLE LOT OF PRAISE AND HIGH FIVES. IT SEEMED TO WORK FINE WITH BOTH MY KIDS. WHEN THEY STARTED TO GET SOME PEE IN THE POTTY, I WAS GIVING THEM CHEDDAR BUNNIES (THOSE ORGANIC ONES LIKE THE GOLDFISH). BUT SERIOUSLY, I WAS GIVING LIKE 2 EACH TIME….WHICH ISN’T MUCH. MY KIDS RARELY GET COOKIES AND CERTAINLY DIDNT GET COOKIES OR TOYS FOR IT. I THINK IF YOU CAN MINIMIZE THOSE TYPES OF REWARDS, THEN YOU WON’T HAVE AS MUCH OF A PAIN WITH TRYING TO WEAN OFF THAT TYPE OF REINFORCEMENT LATER. PARENTAL PRAISE REALLY GOES A LONG WAYS!
• how did you do the nighttime training without a huge mess and cleaning up? did you put absorbent mats on the bed? I’ve heard people put diapers outside of their undies so they feel the wetness but the diaper stops it (I know, I’m supposed to throw away all my diapers)
  OK. SO ON THIS ONE… I DIDN’T REALLY FOLLOW THE MANUAL. I WAS TOO CHICKEN. HAHA. SO I USED PULL-UPS FOR NAPTIME AND OVERNIGHT. MY PEDIATRICIAN SAID THAT WAS FINE ANYWAYS BECAUSE THE BIGGEST THING IS BEING POTTY TRAINED WHEN YOU ARE AWAKE. ALSO, AT THE TIME OF POTTY TRAINING, MY KIDS WERE STILL SLEEPING IN A CRIB… AND I WANTED TO KEEP IT THAT WAY, SO I WASN’T ABOUT TO TEACH THEM HOW TO GO PEE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. THEY EVENTUALLY WEANED THEMSELVES OFF THE SLEEP-PEEING. NAPTIMES WOKE UP DRY AFTER AS WHILE, AND EVENTUALLY OVERNIGHT TOO.
• did your kids go to daycare at that age? i’ll need to talk to my daycare and tell/ bribe them to check up on my son more often
  MY KIDS WERE BOTH POTTY TRAINED AT 22 MONTHS AND DID  NOT START PRESCHOOL UNTIL 36 MONTHS, SO THAT WAS NOT AN ISSUE FOR US. HOWEVER, IF YOU DEDICATE THE WEEK TO POTTY TRAIN, THEN ASSUMELY, YOUR CHILD SHOULD BE READY TO GO TO SCHOOL AND PRACTICE WHAT HE LEARNED BY TELLING SOMEONE WHEN HE NEEDS TO GO… AND JUST SOME ACCIDENTS WHICH WOULD BE EXPECTED AS THEY STILL LEARNING.
• did you use a potty chair for your son? I find that my son needs a splash guard in front of him or else it don’t quite work. Did you have to carry a potty chair in your car for when you go out to public places?
  MY FRIENDS AND I ALL TRAINED OUR BOYS SITTING DOWN ON POTTY CHAIR TO START. STANDING PEE CAME LATER ONCE THEY WERE CONSISTENT AND READY. AND YES. I HAD A PORTABLE POTTY SEAT THING THAT I LOVE. CHECK OUT BLOG POST ON POTTY PRODUCTS. KALENCOMM PETITE SEAT. STILL KEEP IT IN THE TRUNK FOR EMERGENCY ON THE ROAD BATHROOM STOPS.
• what kind of high fiber foods did you feed your kids? (to help them poop normally)
  MY KIDS EAT A LOT OF FRUITS AND VEGGIES. DAUGHTER DID HAVE AN ISSUE WITH CONSTIPATION FOR A WHILE, SO DR HAD HER TAKING MIRALAX SOMETIMES WITH HER MILK.
• what kinds of liquids did you give them? I’m thinking coconut juice since that’s a lot less sugar than regular juice (we’re trying to be healthy parents)
  HEALTHY IS GOOD! THAT’S WHAT I TRY TO DO AS WELL. I DID DO SOME JUICE, BECAUSE THEY DON’T DRINK IT OFTEN, SO IT INCLINED THEM TO DRINK MORE… BUT IT WAS DILUTED, AND ORGANIC. ALSO POPSICLES WERE A NICE TREAT. MOSTELY DILUTED JUICE THOUGH. I NEEDED THOSE ACCIDENTS TO HAPPEN DURING TRAINING!!!

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 23,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Kindergarten Room Mom: Halloween

So I found out 2 weeks before Halloween that I was going to be Room Mom. No one had volunteered for it… and you know…. Yeah…. YOU KNOW.

My daughter’s teacher liked his holiday events more like activity stations that the kids can rotate through. I thought it was a great idea too, because then the kids have lots to do, and its not all about eating sweets. So with 2 weeks to pull it together, I combed Pinterest for about 6 activities related to Halloween that would be engaging and cover an array of areas (art, fine motor, science, etc). Here’s what I ended up with:

Food Activity: Spiders and Monster Mouths

I choose these in an effort to avoid cookie decorating. I figured the oreo and the marshmellows would be offset by pretzels and apples.

Spider Web Lacing: For some fine motor skills!

Original Pinterest link here.

Science: Fizzy Eyeballs

I wasn’t able to find plastic eyeballs as the original I found on Pinterest. But I did already have these glow in the dark bouncy balls that I had from a previous projects. They were perfect because the kids were excited to be able to keep their ball afterwards.  We did them in individual plastic cups to contain the mess. And the kids were able to select from various colored “potions” to drop on their eyeballs.  See original Pinterest link here.

We also did a fine motor activity adapted from this Pin I found. We used chopsticks instead and had the kids pick the spiders up with them and sort them into cups.

Lastly, we did some scissor skills by having them make pumpkins from this Pin here.

Kids Bedroom Wall Art Decor

Yay! After collecting unique pieces from here and there…. I finally completed the wall art collages for both the kids’ rooms! We ended up moving, so I got a chance to kind of move things around a little bit…. but you can see how it started out, along with when I was making one of the glitter shoe pieces myself.

Okay… So where are some of these goodies all from?

Bicycle – After Valentine’s Day clearance at Target

The two small square canvas art – Dollar section at Target

Fabulous Me – $10 clearance at Target

Green Owl – On sale for $4.99 at Kohls

Keep Calm and Sparkle On – Purchased a print from Etsy and put in a frame from Target

Pink Crown – Hobby Lobby – Don’t forget the 40% coupon!

Glitter Shoe – DIY see link above.

Cinderella quote – $4.99 Kohls

Chandelier Canvas Art – Ethereal Vision from Oliver Gal (but I happened to find it priced down on Zulily!)

One another side of my daughter’s room, I found the pink chevron board from Hobby Lobby when I ordered the crown… and the cute Owl vinyl wall art was from Dollar Tree!! weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

 

For my little man…. the goodies came from:

Teal Chevron board – Target

Keep Calm and Go Get Mom/Wake up and Be Awesome – $4.99 on sale at Kohls

The large Initial Letter – $11.99 at Ross

You are my Sunshine – $7.99 at Marshalls

A Little Man Sleeps Here – Print ordered from Etsy and frame from Target

Robot Wood Cut-Out – Etsy

Mustache (its actually a corkboard) – Kohls

Giveaway from The Parker Project Blog and KidTeez

My friend and fellow mommy blogger is doing her first giveaway on her blog The Parker Project! Who doesn’t love to win free stuff!?!?!?

Stop by and check it out here. GOOD LUCK!! Winner announced November 6!

Back to School

Wow… where did the summer go? In fact.. where did September and October go? I just sat down to catch up on the blog and realized that I didn’t say a word about the first day of school!?? Shame on me. Perhaps its because I have been adjusting to this new wake up time of 6:30am!! For a night owl like myself, caffeine is my new best friend.

So off to Kindergarten went my daughter… and off to preschool went my son. And surprisingly, it was much more heart wrenching to drop off my son. Maybe because he’s my youngest… my baby… my last one. Or maybe because it was so streamless as he just gave me a hug and kiss and walked off without even looking back? *sniff* whatever it was… I had a little “moment”.

As they both started a new chapter… so did I. A new routine for all of us. And even a little downtime in the morning a couple days when they are off at school and I don’t have to work until a little later. ahhhhh. Kind of nice. What will I do with myself!?!?

Hello… are you there?

Hello readers… followers… and anyone who just happens to stumble across this tiny piece of neuroticism that I share with the world.

So I realize that I’ve been bad about keep up with the blog lately. Real bad. So sad. So busy. busy busy busy. But that’s no excuse. So I apologize up front. In any case… outside of the every day things that I am personally going through as a parent to now 5 and 3 year olds…. what else can I offer to you on this blog? What else would you like to have a schedule or plan for? haha. Is it even possible to plan anything else outside of sleep and feeding? 🙂

Ask and you may (If I can conjure) receive.

Breastmilk Pumping & Freezing – Followup

I love the response that I get from people to come across my blog and use it as a resource as they begin their boob juice factory venture! Recently, I had received a message from a friend who had some additional questions after reading the Pumping & Freezing post. I decided to post our convo here as a follow-up in case anyone else had similar questions. Feel free to leave a comment if you ever want clarification on my neurotic ways. 🙂

Here’s the convo:

Fellow Mommy: I was reading up in your blog about the number of diapers I would need for P. I ran across your blog entry re: pumping and freezing…wow! I wish I read it sooner

Such good info! I nurse and pump right now but will be going back to work in a few weeks. I wanted to ask you how you collect to freeze. Did you get 4oz. At each pump session? More? Less? If less, did you refrigerate and then collect the 4 oz into the bottle?

I wish I had known to ask to pump at the hospital for the extra parts! They’re super $$$! Oh well…I’ll remember to ask next time 🙂 oh and those bottles! What a great idea. I’ve been buying the medela bottles and bags. Hate the bags but didn’t know there were inexpensive bottles out there. Again, wish I read your blog prior.

I’m already 2 months pp. I don’t have milk production like you. Do you think if I try to pump more, the volume would increase? I’m thinking about EP’ing now since I’m going back to work, except for late night/early morning feedings. I don’t want my supply to drop. Instead I would love for it to increase. Right now, if I pump in place of a feeding, I’m only getting an average of 4-6oz.

I’m going to follow your advice and start him on the frozen bm to get him used to it.

Mommy Neurotic Response:

First off… I was a pumping maniac… so I would total about 46oz A DAY when I was in my prime. hahaha. I usually had 6 or 8oz bottles attached to my pump, and would then pour them into 4oz increments (my freezing bottles) to store.

When I started out, it was less than 4oz, and i actually froze in 2oz incredments to start cuz baby wasnt taking much in one sitting anyways.

Later on, when it was definitely at least 4oz per feeding, then I only froze in 4 oz increments.

In that case, if I pumped less than 4oz, I would put in fridge to cool it down. And the next pumping, I would put in fridge to cool down, and then merge them together into a 4oz to freeze.

Yes! I didn’t like the bags… some leaked, and I found them harder to thaw standing up in the fridge. Plus the bottles you can reuse – and you know I reused them through 2 kids and THEN sold them and got a third of my money back on those bottles. hahahhaah.

YES! If you pump more – you will produce more… its all about supply and demand. Did you read the blog post on “increasing your supply” yet? 🙂 How many times are you feeding/pumping per day right now? that will give me a better idea.

Sometimes, if P does not suck all the milk out of you, then slap the pump on to clear it all out. Make sure you clear all your supply out with every feeding. 🙂

I think I used to get like 46oz total from about 4-5 pumping sessions. I only fed the kids 25oz a day… so the rest to freeze.

and YES! Do start him on the frozen stuff…. just one bottle a day… keeps him used to it… and also helps to funnel out the older milk as you put newer stuff in freezer.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I’d be happy to answer them. Pumping and sleep schedules are usually what people contact me for. hehe

Children See, Children Do

This video is definitely worthy of 1 minute of your attention. A little reminder for us all.