Busy Bags

So forever ago (well like last year) I mad a bunch of busy bags for Liam to play with when we are out at restaurants and what not. He hasn't even used them all yet and I am in the process on making a few more for our trip to Mexico. So I figured I would post them on here. These are the ones that stay in his diaper bag on a regular basis.

The Button Snake



 



This is made with a ribbon sewed to a button on one end and some pieces of felt sewed onto the other end to keep the felt pieces from slipping off the other end. I then cut out the squares and put a cut down the middle large enough to easily thread the button through. Liam does this one easily enough but needs to have me hold the button still for him while he threads the felt pieces on.

 

Stuff A Bottle

 

Super easy to make, I took the leftovers from the other busy bags I made (pom poms, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners) and put them in a cleaned out Gatorade bottle. He loves dumping everything out and putting it all back in. (sorry about the crappy picture)

 

Velcro Sticks

 

Again really easy to make, I just bought velcro circles that fit nicely on my popsicle sticks that I was lazy and bought already in pretty colors. I made a bunch of shapes and then put the velcro on accordingly so some have velcro on opposite sides of the stick, others have them on the same side. Liam isn't great at making the shapes yet but loves when we do it for him and then he looks through them like they are a window. Not exactly being used how I originally planned but he has fun so that is the main thing.

These are ones that Liam hasn't even used yet since I haven't swapped them out yet.

Pom Pom Matcher

 

I took small labels and colored them with sharpies that matched the colors of pom poms that I had. I then stuck them in the bottom of the ice cube trays and originally I was done. But then the labels started coming off so I took clear tape and put all the labels back with tape on top of them this time. And that seems to be staying better.

Button Matching

 

So this one was fun to make. I chose the buttons I wanted to use, I did 2 different shapes in each color. I then cut up some cardstock and traced each button in the center of the page and color it in and then I wrote what color it is and the shape for when he gets older. Then I had them all laminated so it will be harder for Liam to destroy.

 

And this last one he has used and loves but it doesn't live in the diaper bag yet.

Beads In A Water Bottle

 

This is a super easy one to make, I took a bunch of beads and put them in a cleaned out Gatorade bottle. Done. Liam loves putting the beads back in the bottle but normally doesn't have the patience to do all the beads before he dumps them back out and starts over again.

 

 I put all of these, (except the ones in bottles) in pencil bags that I got at Walmart for a dollar. After seeing it on Pinterest I am going to add a piece of cardstock to the back of each bag so that the bags can be more stable and not flop around as much. I will make about 6 more, some that I have already started but just haven't had time to finish. I love these because they are something for Liam to do while we are out at like restaurants so that he doesn't get bored and misbehave and they teach him things and were decently cheap to make

Broken Baby

So last Wednesday was a bad day. Around 8 hubby had me call him and he told me that Liam had fallen out of his crib this morning but he was doing alright, he just wanted to give me a heads up so I knew what was going on. OK, poor kid but as long as he is alright then it isn't that bad. Execpt he wasn't. At the end of my lunch break (around 9:45) hubby called again saying that Liam is apparently still upset and my sister in law, who was watching him thinks that he needs to be taken to Instacare and that I need to do it. Awesome. So I went and found my supivisor and explained what was going on and by 10 I was on my way to Liam.

When I go there the first thing he said to me was "owie", so sad. He was just laying on my sister in law's chest and apparently hadn't wanted to move or go anywhere all morning. We hung out for a little bit so I could get an idea of how bad he was and considering he kept randomly crying and holding his arm, I decided to have my mom look at him (she was an RN). So off to my mom's we go. She called me on the way and basically said we need to take him because there is no way for her to know if anything was broken, expecially in a toddler because she had never dealt with this before. On the way to my mom's, poor Liam fell asleep because it was his nap time but then woke up again when we got to her place and she sat in the back with him to try and comfort him on the way to the doctor.

We got there and he wanted to be held by me most of the time. He refused to stand on the scale to get weighed and was just freaking out in general. We hung out in the room for a bit before a doctor came in and basically told us that he needs an x-ray and a tech will be in soon to take care of that. We went to get x-rayed and he was allowed to sit on my lap to do it. The first few he was pretty good for, he just put his arm on the board, and the nurse would turn it a little for the right angle and he fussed a little but no big deal. Then we had to have his arm straight to get ones of the elbow, that didn't go over well. I had to hold him down and the nurse (tech I guess) would hold his arm down at the correct angle and he screamed like we were killing him. We managed to get the 3 and then I was trying to comfort him but I was wearing one of those bulky vests that are supposed to protect you and couldn't hold him very well so my mom came in and grabbed him from me to take him back to the room. I followed them a couple minutes later and they are standing outside the room with Liam clinging to my mom's leg, refusing to go in the room. We finally convinced him to come to me and I carried him back to the room to wait for the doctor to give us the results.

Well it took awhile and my poor kid was so upset and tired from his lack of nap that he was trying to lay down on the arm of the chair, saying "night night, night night". I finally convinced him that my arm was more comfortable to lay his head on and he fell asleep.

He woke up a bit later and then the doctor came back and annouced that Liam's arm is broken. Apparently toddler bones don't actually break, they are more flexible so they bend, which isn't good either. His had bent in 2 different spots, he said we would need to put a cast on it and they would put a splint on it until they are sure they swelling goes down. And that I needed to see if his normal doctor does casts or if they could recommend an orthepedic specialist. So I ran over to his doctor (Instacare is next door to the hospital where his normal doctor is) and made an appointment to get a hard cast on him on Friday.

By then it was past 1 and I took him home, gave him some more iboprofen and put him to bed. He slept for 2 hours and when he woke up he was really cuddly and still didn't want to do much, but by dinnertime he was running around and playing and even wearing the sling that the doctor gave him.

So Friday comes around and I take Liam to the appointment for the hard cast. After waiting for what seemed like forever (it was probably more around half an hour) the physician assistant comes in and takes the sling off and takes a look at his arm and the x-rays. He decided that we can do just a cast on the bottom part of his arm, that we don't have to have it go over the elbow, unless Liam pulls it off then he will get one that goes over the elbow that he can't pull off. He did really well when getting the cast on. We explained that it will help his arm feel better, and he sat nicely and just let the doctor fix it. And he only has to have it on for 3 weeks which isn't bad.

All in all, he will survive but it was a bad day all around. It was really hard having him consistantly cry and tell me that he is in pain and not able to do anything about it. That was one of the few truely difficult moments I have had as a mom. But we got through it and we are both alright.

Potty Training Part 1: Planning

So I have been thinking about potty training Liam for awhile now but everyone says, boys always potty train older then girls and are much more difficult to do. But he has been telling me sometimes when he is poopy and to change his diaper when it is full and is bothering him. So online I went. I did about 3 days of research and I had a plan. My main resource was an amazing site call Potty Whiz. It gave me tips on common problems and how to get started. So I made a whole bunch of notes and decided how we were going to go about this.

Liam is so smart, he gets things and we bribe him all the time to get him to do things like hug us, yeah I know, great parenting but it shows that that is a method that works for him. He also seems to hate being wet, he has dumped water down the front of his shirt and then cries at me, wet wet until I change his outfit so he doesn't enjoy that either which is good. So he seems ready.

I went and picked up a training toilet seat, because we figured might as well have him start in the bathroom and not have to add that step in. We are going to have him go cold turkey. I have been telling him for days that he isn't going to have to wear diapers anymore and he is going to get to wear underwear like mommy and daddy to try and get him excited about it. He has picked out his own underwear and what candy he will get for his reward. He has sat on his toilet seat very happily and we have tried showing him all the steps that go into using the bathroom like a big boy. So I have done everything I can to make this a fun, exciting process for him.

So we are doing 3 days of intensive potty training in hopes it will kick start it so that when he goes to daycare it is not a horrible experiance for them to have him having accidents everywhere. We are starting on Valentine's Day with just hubby because I work in the morning and then we will work together with him on Sunday and then I will finish with Monday and hopefully he will have a good idea of what to do by the time I go back to work on Tuesday. We won't really be leaving the house at all, it will be us, Liam in a shirt and underwear and lots of trips to the bathroom. I made a list of how we are doing everything and I have printed it out, laminated it and hung it on the wall in the bathroom so that we can easily see it and know what to do in case we forget or get flustered. I also have another page that I will be printing that has what we are doing for rewards and accidents.

Potty Whiz Weekend

(Saturday-Monday)

1. When he wakes up, get all excited and change him into his new underwear
2. Let him run around in a shirt and underwear
3. Keep him within arms reach at all times
4. When he tells you he needs to go, or starts going, immediately take him to the half bath.
5. Have him pull his underwear down, try to not help him too much
6. Let him climb up on the toilet himself
7. Let him play on his iPad with the Potty Time game while sitting on the toilet
8. Sit in the bathroom with him until he goes
9. When he goes be very excited and happy
10. Help him wipe if needed
11. Let him get off the toilet himself and pull up his own underwear
12. Give him his reward and remind him that if he needs to go again to tell us

• Don't prompt him, let him tell us if he has to go
• Do prompt him before naps or leaving the house
• Use cloth training pants for naps and bedtime and call them night underwear
• Tell him to tell us if he needs to go potty at night and we will come get him
• Try not to talk negatively about poop (calling it yucky or anything)
• Dont let him see males pee standing up

Rewards

• Give him 3 pieces of candy whenever he goes at all in the toilet
• On the 2nd day, add in dry checks too (candy for staying dry for an hour etc.)
• If needed use a special reward for telling us if he needs to go or for pooping
• 
   

Accidents

• Be postive still
• Clean him up
• If pooped, have him help take it to the toilet and flush it, while explaining that is where poop goes, not in his underwear (nicely)
• Explain to him that if he doesn't want to be wet, he has to tell us and go in the toilet
• If you manage to get him on the toilet before he is done going during an accident, it no longer counts as an accident and gets rewarded as normal

 

Once the weekend is over I plan on making printout for the babysitters too so that they can use the same plan that we are using. Wish us luck that he gets it and that we can be done changing diapers for the time being. I will do another update next week to say how it is going. 

Superbowl



We had a busy full day for the Superbowl. It started with us hanging out in bed with Liam, playing with the new dinosaur hand puppet hubby had gotten him from IKEA a few days before.

 

When we finally got up, I went and started cooking and hubby started making his meatballs. Anytime there is an even where you have to bring something, hubby always makes his meatballs and they are heveryones favorite. I started with the desserts since they had to cool anyways. I made something that I found online called Superbowl Bars. They were decently easy to make but I wasn't sure how everyone was going to like them. I then made normal brownies (from the box, I'm not that good) and I had found a box of Smores brownies (technically dessert bars).

Once those were done, I prepped the mini pigs in a blanket. So easy to make, I just put TV on my iPad and it was very methodical and fun to do. I made a ton of them, and then stuck them in the fridge so that I could bake them right before the party and they would be warm for people to eat.

We ended up having 8 people and 2 children over. But I don't really like football, I normally just watch the commercials. Since we had friends over the and one of my friends decided to work on a diaper cake for another friend's baby shower that we are planning.

The whole group (minus me) together.

 

Liam decided to tickle his friend Luke, it was freaking adorable.



 

 

The finished diaper cake, well sort of finished. We still need to decorate it but that shouldn't be too bad.

 

We realized we had too many diapers and since we already wrapped them all, my friend suggested we make little mini diaper cakes for extra decorations. We had run out of ribbon by this point so I ended up getting t go back to Walmart for more ribbon.

The baby shower is a jungle animal theme so the animal print ribbon was so perfect to find.

So that was our fun Superbowl day. 

Sick Week

This is another one that I wrote and then didn't post right away. This happened the week of the 12th. So it was a crappy week. Hubby is out of town, training for work, so that isn't fun. And then early Tuesday morning (around 3:30am) I get woken up by Liam freaking out, I go in his room and he is telling me "diaper, diaper" and then I see a big brown spot on his pillow. Now he is wear footie pajamas so a blowout is basically impossible, he then starts throwing up in front of me. Awesome. I go turn on the light and see he threw up all over the crib and himself. I put him on the changing table and he throws up again, poor boy, luckily I had a wipe out and was able to catch it. He just laid on my stomach on the changing table while I cleaned up his crib. After I cleaned him up, he asked for milk so I gave him some and then he went back to sleep.

I decided to stay home so I went back to bed but had to get up several times because Liam kept waking up and I didn't want him to throw up in his crib again. He woke up around 8 for good. You could tell he wasn't feeling good, normally when he is sick he acts normal, he is just coughing or sneezing during it, this was different. He just sat with me and cuddled, so sad.

I had planned on helping my mom after I got off work so we decided that we would just head over right before Liam's nap and put him down over there (they have a playpen in their guest room set up for him to sleep in). As I was getting ready to shower, I hear him cry and he has thrown up again, this time on my floor. I quickly strip him and put him in the already on shower, then go and clean up the mess. 5 minutes later I head to the shower and he is standing in the exact spot I put him in.

We go over to my parent's house late and put him down for his nap. He sleeps decent (2 and a half hours) and is acting mostly normal again. Playing and he is drinking a little. He takes a second nap but is acting like he feels better and hasn't thrown up again. So I put him down for the night, planning on going to work and sending him over to my SIL's like normal.

4 hours into my shift at work I get an email from my roommate saying that Liam threw up on the way to my SIL's. Well crap. Then I get an email from husband saying his sister is trying to get ahold of me because our kid is throwing up and I might have to get work off. I check my phone and sure enough I have a text from my SIL saying he has thrown up 3 times and that I need to come get him. So I get off work and go get him. He falls asleep in the car on the way home so I let him sleep.

I manage to nap while he does and when he wakes up we head back over to my parent's house (we were working on a project). Liam is acting very lethargic, and basically just laying on the couch watching TV. He mostly refuses to drink, except for small sips ever once in awhile and won't eat at all. In the late afternoon he naps again. Since he has been showing signs of dehydration I decide to call his doctor, they tell me to bring him into the night clinic at 6.

So off to the doctor we go. We end up waiting almost an hour and in that time Liam decided to drink an entire sippy cup. So by the time we saw the doctor he was basically acting normal again. The doctor said if she had seen him an hour she most likely would have checked him in but it is wonderful what 8 oz of liquid can do for a kid.

 

She said to bring him back in if he starts showing those signs again, great. While we were sitting there waiting, I started feeling crappy. I tried ignoring but realized that I must have whatever Liam has. Once we get back to my parents place, I too throw up so my mom insists on having Liam spend the night at their place since she was going to watch him while I was at work anyways. I get some supplies for Liam and set up the monitor and go home and go to sleep with pills to help me make it through my work day tomorrow.

My mom texted me at 5ish saying that Liam is doing better, he was drinking and had some toast and was keeping it down and they were just chilling watching Curious George. That was fine except he was up really early which I felt bad about for my parents. Apparently every time he woke up throughout the night one of them went in there to make sure he hadn't thrown up or anything again, so they had a crappy night but they wanted me to sleep so it was nice for me.

 

My mom had me pick him up at about 4PM, so that I could nap for a bit after work. Liam had done great, he was eating and drinking and basically back to normal. So that was our few days of crappy sickness. We survived thanks to my parents helping out so much.

This was Liam's first time being really sick and acting it. Normally when he has a cold he just is sneezing or coughing while doing his normal thing, I've never had him just laying around not wanting to do anything like an actually sick kid. I felt so bad for him but since then he has felt so much better, thank goodness.

Children's Museum

I wrote this post a few weeks ago and had issues with the pictures and wasn't able to post it right away but I figure later is better then never. So I finally made it to the Children's Museum and it was awesome. First off it doesn't actually cost any money to go, they do ask if you want to donate anything which I did but it isn't mandatory. And secondly it is amazing!

There are 2 floors, full of rooms with different themes. Like one with farm stuff, it had a life sized cow that you could actually milk and chickens to play with. There was also a desert animal one, with a pit that is all padded that you can put the kids in and let them roam, and stairs that lead up to an area with buckets that moved and you could put little foam pieces in (I might have explained that badly). And a music one had something like a piano, with no keys, all you do it wave your hand over the empty space and it played notes, so cool. There was also a steel drum and drums and cymbals on the wall for the kids to bang on. There was only one room that was a bit too old for Liam, it was a science one, so he will soon be

We ended up spending an hour and a half there and Liam was sad to leave, we will definately be going back. Now the fun part, all the cute pictures of my kid.

 

Latch Board

It is a goal of mine to make a present for Liam for his birthday and Christmas. His birthday one, was his felt board and for Christmas it was his latch board. One of my friend's turned me onto them by showing me some on their Pinterest board. I decided that would be perfect with my kid that loves that type of thing. Of course I first found ones that I would love to copy. I found some great ideas.

http://www.thephotographerswife.com/latch-board-activity-toy-kids-diy/

 

 https://jabaayave.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/diy-latch-board/

 

http://www.younghouselove.com/2013/01/last-minute-latch/

 

http://makebakeandlove.blogspot.com/2014/07/diy-latch-board-for-emerson.html

 

http://www.tealandlime.com/2011/12/diy-latches-board-kids-gift/

 

http://runninglawyer.blogspot.com/2013/08/diy-lock-and-hinge-board-for-toddlers.html

I then made a list of all the pieces I wanted for Liam's board, and got pictures of them because I do not know the actual names of most latches. I picked about 10 different ones. I was trying to keep the project cheap so I decided to go to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore to get all of the supplies.  I went down there and was thrilled to find everything I needed and after heading up to the register, I found out that they also have pieces of wood, so I went back to the back of the store and found the perfect size board and a smaller piece for my doors to be cut out of. The only thing they didn't have was the color of paint I wanted so I went to Lowes and $6 later, I had my 2 different colors of paint for the board and the doors. When I got home I took everything carefully out of the packaging and put all the screws and whatnot in ziploc bags around the board so I didn't lose them and arranged everything on the board and took pictures.

I took pictures because I was not installing any of the latches myself and so this way made it faster. I painted it all with 2 coats of paint, taking advantage of the fact was hubby was out of town and we didn't have 2 cars in the garage.

I had asked my dad to help me put it all together, so the next day I brought it all over to my parent's house, luckily Liam decided to fall asleep right then so we didn't have to make my mom watch him. It took us about an hour and a half total to attach all the pieces. I am so glad that I had my dad to help me because some of the pieces needed adjusting to make them work, or to be oiled and some of the screws were too long and went all the way through the board so he grinded them down so they wouldn't poke Liam. I had to repaint some spots because the grinding machine thing destroyed the paint in a few places.

Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out, it wasn't very expensive (it totaled about $46) and Liam seems to love it too.  I am not completely done yet, I plan on put carabiners on the handles, put a mirror or vinyl animal underneath the doors, and put locks on the eye hook and the other lock thing.  But it is pretty close to done and Liam doesn't know the difference, it will just be more exciting when new things get randomly added.