Stress Less Life

I apologize for not posting anything new in awhile.  There has been a lot going on, from my newly potty trained toddler, to my newborn-turned baby who is now crawling, and sadly, to a new neighborhood crime tragedy of a serial rapist.

And I promise, the next post will be completely on a lighter note as I have FINALLY finished my baby's nursery, well, at least the big things are done.  I know, she is now 10 months old, but having 2 kids under 3 has been hard to get anything accomplished!  So stay tuned.....

But back to the drama at hand.  Yes, my close knit neighborhood has had an awful, unfortunate month or so with a serial rapist attacking young women in their homes, and has yet to be caught.  The last victim was the most stressful on us all, as it was a home invasion where he attacked her after her husband left for work at 7am.  She was able to fight him off and ran to her neighbor's home, but what followed was an extreme police chase, police helicopters, bicycle cops, and police on horseback, combing through our entire neighborhood.  Everyone was glued to the news and Facebook, including my mom group's FB page with everyone on edge. 

We all locked our doors. The area schools were on lockdown.  We set our house alarms and did not go outside unless needed.  And sadly, the man escaped and he is still at large. 

But the hardest part has been explaining to our children why we are setting our alarms, why we are locking our doors and staying inside.

Potty Training.......Check!

We did it.  We finally did it!  We conquered the much dreaded potty training of our 2 year old (2.10 months to be exact).  For those that have already accomplished this, it's probably a distant blur for you, but for us it was a huge event in our household.

Remember when I blogged awhile back about which method to use here?  I pictured it to be one of those things where it would be waaayy ongoing, training pants, pull ups, multiple accidents, going back to diapers, etc.  BUT I took the advice of you guys out there and tried the 3 Day Potty Training ebook by Lora Jensen.  I was skeptical at first, eBook??  But after I read it, it seemed to make sense, and after all, it was written by a mom who had researched and tried it all.
(Also of note, I ran across another 3 day Potty Training book on Amazon and it sounds exactly like the other method, not sure which one came first?)

And almost all of this method seemed non-critical towards the child, which was important to me.  I didn't want any shaming, or any method that was too pushy.

I also added my own twist and bought a bunch of dollar gifts at the Dollar Tree and put them in a basket.  So each time she went on the potty she got to pick out a gift, and I also bought a few bigger gifts for the poops at Target.  I also gave her a sticker each time she tried or had an accident to encourage her to keep telling us she had to go.

So, how did it go down?

Loving Mommies

Terrycloth vs. Wire?  Does that ring a bell for any psych majors out there?

The famous psychologist, Harry Harlow, conducted a study back in the 1930's to test his belief that a mother is more than just a food and thirst provider.  So he did a study where he took some young rhesus monkeys, and gave them a choice between two different "mothers." One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.  Harlow removed young monkeys from their natural mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be "raised" by these mother surrogates. The experiment demonstrated that the baby monkeys spent significantly more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother.  That they preferred the soft cuddly contact of a mom, than just food.