Myrtle Beach Vacation!

Sorry I've been so lax in posting the past few weeks, it's been a little crazy it seems, but now we are back from vacation and I'm ready to get everyone all caught up!

First, I think we must be in the baby boom of 2013 because 3 good friends are expecting all around the same time in Marchish time frame!!  So excited for Paula (my good friend John's wife), Crystal (our friends Grant and Crystal from college) and Tiffany too, my BF from college.  So excited for all of them!!

On our front we've been implementing the Love and Logic techniques and I'll have to say, although not perfect, much better than before.  I no longer feel as though my toddler may drive me to be a alcoholic!

We will see how it goes.....I'm now referring to the Super Nanny book on some "fall asleep in your own bed" techniques.  It's never been all that easy since we switched out her bed to a full size.

Our wonderful parents celebrated their 40th Anniversaries on August 18 (my parents) and August 19 (Ben's parents).  We've always thought it was cool they got married on the same weekend in 1972.  They are great role models!!

We headed out to Myrtle Beach on Friday the 17th.  Somehow got everything in the vehicle and headed out at 3 pm with the goal of getting to Flat Rock, NC for the night (Right south of Asheville, NC)  We got there around 9 pm or so and crashed for the night and rolled on in the remainder of the 5 hours the next morning to arrive around 2:30 pm into Myrtle Beach.

We met up with my friend Christi, her husband Brian and their kiddos Gunner and Greyson.  Gunner you may recall (who is 3 now) was also a 33 Weeker due to PPROM and she spent 6 weeks in the hospital on bed rest.  They are from Michigan.

So we enjoyed a great week in Myrtle Beach, the kids played well, the hubbies got a long and I got to spend some good time with Christi!

Ben was in golf heaven.  Somehow he failed to realized that Myrtle Beach is like the golf mecca with HUGE golf stores and golf shoe outlets, as well as other outlet malls.

He was able to get some nice golf shirts, shorts and new golf shoes.  Bean racked up with 3 pair of new shoes for the fall that she really needed, not golf related though, lol, and I found some shirts.  Nothing major but a few things for all.

The condo was nice, plenty of room, 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, so no one ever felt they were being crowded by anyone else.  The kiddos got along great and all enjoyed playing in the sand, in the waves and in the kiddie pool.

I hadn't been to Myrtle Beach since 1999 and prior to that we had been several times as a kid.  The only thing I remembered from our time there as a kid was going to the restaurant Drunken Jacks, and it was still there!!  It was the only thing even vaguely familiar to me but we got to eat there and it was still yummy and as I remembered.

We had a couple rainy days, but overall it was a nice time.  Although I must say, after really changing my diet and eating pretty clean overall for the past 4 months, a week of not so great eating and way more than normal alcohol consumption, I felt like crap the last day or so and I'm finally now on Monday, 2 days after we got back, feeling remotely normal again!!

So now what everyone really wants, pictures of Bean : )

 Bean's suit is a bit to small.....

 Floating with daddy in the lazy river

 it's a lazy kind of morning

 playing in the sand this year, not eating it!!

 Gunner and Greyson outside of the Aquarium

 Bean and I outside the Aquarium

 Not sure what to think of the horseshoe crabs

 Starfish!

 Seahorse

 Loving all the pretty fish!

 Sharks too!

 View from the deck

 Our dinner at BK Friday night on the road

 Playing in the surf

 for the love of all things large and stuffed animals

 yep, bears too

 we took them on a walk to see if we could get them to nap

 success!!

 We met up with another preemie mom friend Amanda on Wednesday and got to meet her little guy Parker!

 Makings of a water spout in front of our condo, never touched all the way down though

 stylin'

 our cutie patooties!

I've met my match

She is 2 and her name is Mallory.
I still think in the grand scheme of things she isn't as "crazy 2 year old" as many, but she is stubborn and strong willed.



I'm having flashbacks to the stories mom tells me of some of my and dad's epic standoffs for the same reasons.  We are both very stubborn and strong willed.

The one story that comes to mind also occured when I was 2.  I didn't feel it was necessary to go to bed and of course, dad knew it was necessary for me to go to bed.  2 stubborn people (even at 2) with 2 very different ideas.  Apparenlty the arguing went on for quite a while and I really look back on it now and think of dad at like 29 and me at 2 having this all out argument at like 10 pm and I have to laugh.

Dad would put me in bed and I'd pop right back up and say I'm not going to bed.  Dad was say yes you are and put me back in bed and on and on it went.  It seems like I even recall a threat to take me to the hospital, lol, not sure what that was going to do, but you know, it didn't work.

Mom said she was in bed almost in tears wanting one of us to give in.  Dad and I can stand our ground for a very long time : )

I don't recall how it ended but I'm sure I eventually went to sleep and then later I had a night shirt that said "I don't want to go to bed" on it, how appropriate!

So, you can see she gets it honestly.  Wonder if those stubborn genes are connected to the "who I look like" genes since me, dad and Mallory also are the ones who look most alike.

Ben is also stubborn and strong willed, so she gets a double dose of that added in with his "unable to sit still must be into something" and well, there are nights I have several glasses of wine!

I'm trying to figure out how to best help her realize right from wrong and then to not do the things we have established as "wrong."  So far the typical stuff isn't working.

We do time outs and if she deliberatly pours something on the floor I make her help clean it up most of the time, but it doesn't phase her, she will just do it again.

In griping to my preemie mom friends about her antics, they've recommended me the book Love and Logic for 0-6 year olds.  Basically how to handle strong willed children.  They say it works and it arrives from Amazon on Friday.  It has great reviews, so lets hope it gives me some new ideas.



I'm guessing shoving her nose in what she did wrong and spanking her like when we potty trained Tucker isn't looked highly upon in the parenting world.  Just kidding!

I also found this article, Parenting your Strong Willed Child, on Pinterest, which is good as well.  I better print it out and keep it on the fridge for reference!

I really wouldn't want her any other way than stubborn and strong willed, so I'm hoping we can find some happy medium so each give a little and everyone can just be a little less stressed about it all!

I've determined after we get back from the beach we are going to work more on potty training.  She seems to really like peeing on the carpet (thankfully the dog pee clean up stuff, which we never use for Tucker, work good on kiddo pee too) we are going to see if we can harness that excitement for peeing in her potty.  A new sticker on the potty everytime she goes!  Elmo stickers at that!

In other Mallory antics this week, she has become, how shall we say, interested in exploring?  Tiffany sent me a text earlier this week saying that she bacically copped a feel of Bentley's privates as she was changing him on the couch.  Mallory walked over, gave it a little squeeze and then walked on.  Oh my.  Fun times around here!

Since I'm not doing a very good job in getting these posts up in a timely fashion, here's an update to the "Love and Logic."
I finished the book on Sunday with plans to start implementing on Monday.  Ben flew to Racine for the week early Monday morning and I had him pack it with him so he could read as much as possible on his flight so we could be on the same "parenting" page when he got back on Friday.

2 days into it and so far it's been a better 2 days.  Better in that I'm not frazzled and seeking a glass of wine. 

The main focus in this book is to not raise your voice, not bark orders, and show empathy.  You also work with them, at this age, to let them make as many choices as you can, it empowers their self worth and by letting them make all kinds of choices throughout the day on stuff that you really don't care about which they chose, then when you need to be the one to make a choice you basically have barganing power because you've been letting them make choices all day.

So our mornings go a little something like this now.

• Do you want a banana or canteloup with breakfast


• which of these 2 cups do you want for the day


• do you want milk or water


• do you want an egg or sausage


• which of these 2 outfits do you want to wear


• which of these 2 pair of shoes do you want to wear


• which of these 2 toothbrushes do you want to use


• which of these 2 tubes of kiddie toothpaste do you want

Stuff that I could care less which she choses, but it's the fact that SHE is getting to choose that she likes, and it actually makes her happier, thus we have less stuggles and melt downs.

You also have an "empathy phrase" for when they do something wrong.  So you aren't shouting no, no, and spanking their rear or whatever knee jerk reaction may come out, you have a practiced phrase that you state in a very calm manner and then say "time for some quiet time in your bedroom."

So last night when she dumped the dog food on the floor, it went a little something like this:

"Oh no, that's so sad.  We don't dump dog food on the floor.  Time for some quiet time in your room"  And I picked her up and put her in her room and shut the door.

There was screaming, crying, temper flairing, but you just let them get it all out and when they calm down simply open the door, say "mommy loves you" and leave it at that.

We then went back out to pick up the dog food, which she then proceeded to throw a handfull across the porch again, so the exact same thing stated above happened, more quiet time in her room (not as long this time) and then on the 3rd attempt, she every so nicely helped me pick up the rest of the dog food and we took it to Tucker's bowl.

As they get older there's added things you do and say for their questioning or misbehaving, but at 2, giving them choices and having your empathy statement and actions ready is really what's key.

We will see how the rest of the week pans out but so far I'm liking what I see!!

Mallory's first Dance class was on Monday.  I was really hoping for gynastics (as much as she likes to run around) but I didn't think they had 2 year old gymnastics, but I was wrong they did.
She knew her Dance teacher, so I left her there and went to wait out front.  When I went back in closer to 5 for class to be over, they said they determined pretty quickly that she would be better in gymnastics (which that 2 year old class goes on at the same time) and moved her over there after about 10 minutes!  Not really surprising to me.  She looked like she was having a ball in gymnastics although her teacher that she was dragging around looked a bit frazzled!  So now we have a gymnast instead of a dancer, lol!