I Will Survive!!

We're done. The semester is over. We can all breathe now! Last night, neither of us cared when Benny came crawling into our bed.

This morning, Shuky snuck out of bed early and made an amazing breakfast for me, took Benny to the kitchen, and together they came in and woke me up to eat my delicious breakfast! This was his way of saying thank you for putting up with me during finals. :)

Benny brought me the plate with cottage cheese and strawberries, yelling, "Look Mommy! It's I V U!" To which Shuky quickly corrected him, "No Benny, that says I heart you! Like I love you!" Was very cute!! Benny was so excited to see someone eating in bed so he sat down next to me to help out!

I got another gift yesterday, as well, but I'm not ready to share that one with you so in the meantime, you'll all just have to wait to hear what it is!!

Blah.

It's been an extremely frustrating week, between potty training and Shuky's finals. I don't really  have nice things to say right now so I will hold my tongue. Just wanted to drop in, make an appearance. Hopefully the nice and happy me will be back sometime next week.

For all you students out there, hope your finals went well and you enjoy your well deserved winter break! To our traveling friends, safe trips and enjoy your vacations!

A Tale of Twos

Once, long ago and far away, there was a young woman. Now, by relative standards, this young woman was quite normal. Decent amount of drama, weighed out by happiness and love. This woman met a young man that was the yang to her yin, another soul that could be considered normal. They got married and a short while later, had a little boy of their own, one they hoped would grow into his own person, facing all there was ahead of him with as much normalicy as possible.

Then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, this little boy hit a stage in life commonly knows as 'Terrible Twos'. Although terrible seems quite a mild word for the behavior coming out of this little boy. Words could not begin to describe the sounds that came out of this little boy, the shrieks, the yells, the words! His body would go rigid when he was not getting his way. In case you are trying to figure out what this did, it more or less made it completely impossible to put a coat on him or strap him into his car seat.

Enough of the fairy tale, I'm sure some day this will end (IT DOES, RIGHT???) and we can have an 'and they all lived happily ever after' at the end of the story. In the meantime, I am dealing with this little boy, my lovely Benny, and his horrible tantrums on a way too regular basis! I don't like going out in public with him. I don't even want to take him downstairs to check the mail! And it doesn't help that I'm irritably pregnant and having fabulous dizzy spells with this new little bump of love! Combine dizzy spells with ear piercing shrieks. It doesn't play out well, no matter how you imagine it. Some days, we come home after dealing with one of these lovely shows he puts on and I go straight to the computer. For what, you ask? Looking for a school for Shuky to transfer to, one with a community that has a school. One that Benny can be in for a large portion of the day. When the clouds leave my head, I realize that's not the answer, but when the forecast calls for storms, that's where I go!

It's not like I'm not prepared to be home with him. I have my handy-dandy craft box, which we use on an extremely regular basis. We have an insane amount of toys for a household of one child, so no lack there! Books galore for reading fun, yep, we've got those! Don't forget about our extensive video library for some much needed vegging time!

The cold is a large factor. We can't go out as much, even for a quick walk or bike ride. Cabin fever sets in and amplifies all of the above nicenesses that we've mentioned here!

Now, add potty training (or, unfortunately, re-potty training in our case) and you have a very scary combination.

'This, too, shall pass.' An old saying that I like to live my life by. Thank you for listening to the frustrated ramblings of a stressed out pregnant mom! Hope you all are having a great day!

The Darndest Things!

Just wanted to do a round-up of some of the latest Benny quips, the kid really cracks me up!
(If we're friends on FaceBook, you've probably seen most of these already!)

When told it was time for a nap, he ran to his kitchen with a bribe for me, "I'm gonna make Mommy coffees!"

We were in the car and I was singing along with the radio. Apparently, Benny liked the song that was playing and couldn't hear over me. "Don't sing very loud Mommy, shhh!"

While brushing his teeth the other day, Benny was studying himself in the mirror. Suddenly, he gasps and yells, "MOMMY I HAVE TWO EYESES!!!"

Right before hopping in the bathtub, he gave me a rundown of what he could see. "This is my belly button. And this is my tushy. And this is my boob. And this is my nother boob!" The funniest part is that neither of us taught him the word boob!

I was cuddling with him in his bed and he had his hand on my belly, feeling the baby's movement. I asked him what it felt like. He looks at me with all seriousness, "Like a truck."

Anytime I'm not feeling well (more often than not these days) he asks me, "Mommy, is your tummy so hurting?"

He has little talks with himself, or between his toys. Sometimes they are motivational. On Chanukah, he got a dreidel that lights up and plays music. He was standing at his table having this talk with himself:
"I can't do it!"
"Why not Benny?"
"Because."
"Yes, you can do it!"
"I can?"

There's a lot more that he says, but for now, I just wanted you to get a slight tidbit of the hilariousness that is Benny Meyer!

Let The Potty Training Re-Begin!

Benny was doing really well with his potty training, even making requests in public to use the toilet! We weren't quite at the point of wearing underwear out of the house but we were very close! Then we had all the holiday traveling in September, followed by a two week visit to NY. Over that time, he completely regressed. Refused to even TALK about the toilet! Diapers only! What a major bummer, considering the amount of time and effort we had put into everything! I started him at 18 months and said we were going to take it slow, let him work out a system that he's comfortable with. Yeah, that worked very well!

Now, we are attempting to re-potty train the little dude. This time it's on our terms. I'm not leaving the house this week, unless absolutely necessary. We may have to go hungry if that's what it takes! (I'm joking, in case anyone is getting worried at that!) He is in his training pants, getting more juice than I've given him all year. More chips and salty things than usual. I'm also prepared to do as many loads of laundry as necessary! This time, prizes are working differently. I'm not going to spend so much money on prizes for each time. Now, he's old enough to understand that at the end of the tunnel is something he REALLY wants! During Chanukah, we went to an ice skating event. He had so much fun and has been asking to go back on a daily basis. Guess what he gets when he earns enough stickers on his toilet chart -- you got it, a trip to the ice skating rink with Mommy and Tatty!! And we talk about it every time his little tushie is on that toilet! I still have some left over cars available for days when he does a really great job, but I'm not handing them out as easily any more! We are going to make this happen and it's going to take effort from all of us this time! I refuse to have two tushies to diaper at the same time!!

The current reward chart:

WISH US LUCK!!

Fish in the Sea

My brother sent me an email today. In it was a link to a Southern California radio station, writing a bit about one of his friends. The guy's name is Seth Menachem (a married man with a cute little girl), and Seth has started a blog called My Single Peeps. 

His mission: 

"I AM MARRIED WITH A KID AND LIVING IN LOS ANGELES. MANY OF MY FRIENDS ARE SINGLE. THEY LIKE TO COMPLAIN TO ME ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE (I LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS LIVING WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE). THIS IS MY WAY OF TRYING TO GET THEM OFF OF MY BACK. THEY DON'T KNOW I'M DOING THIS. WHEN THEY FIND OUT THEY WILL PROBABLY BE REALLY ANNOYED. THEN THEY WILL LAUGH. THEN THEY WILL ASK ME TO SHOW THEM PICTURES OF THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE TO THEM."

One of his 'peeps' he decided to write about was my brother. I LOVE the way he describes each of the people on his blog. He is completely honest about all the quirks you will find in each person but obviously has plenty of good to say about them as well! His concept - browse through, let him know who catches your fancy. Send him your info and he'll forward it on to that person. I love that in the article linked to above, they pointed out my brother's profile as their favorite. Guess what 89.1 FM, he's my favorite too!!!