Parenting Year 1 vs. Year 2

 Parenting a tiny human is hard work.

I notice that things are changing as we are in full swing toddlerhood.

Things that were easy in year 1 are hard now and visa versa.

Tricks we had for a 1 year old do not work at 2.

Two year olds do everything BIG and feel all the emotions all the time.

(8.20.15 Grocery store run.  GIANT meltdown on the way to the store over shoes/car seat, recovered to be a lovely shopping buddy and wrapped up our errand with a second GIANT meltdown on the way home over shoes/car seat #lesigh )

Potty accident

Year 1: mortified

Year 2: extra diapers in the car and a quick outfit change

Public kiddo meltdowns

Year 1: tearful mom rushes screaming child out of earshot and hurries home

Year 2: calm-ish mom tried to rationalize/talk with screaming toddler, thing eventually pass and we continue doing what we were doing

Skipped naps

Year 1: panic - something must be wrong

Year 2: panic - I had several things I wanted to get done during nap time

Making messes in public

Year 1: mortified and left

Year 2: stop what I'm doing, clean up the millions of goldfish all over the aisle in TJ Maxx and keep shopping

Screaming in her carseat

Year 1: didn't happen a ton, but tried everything to make it stop

Year 2: currently hating on the car seat (which is ironic because she's riding in it far less than she ever has), throws super fit about her straps (which are fine) and we drive on knowing it will pass

Annoyed with all shoes options

Year 1: she didn't care about her shoes and thought they were all delicious

Year 2: she either loves or hates her shoes for the day.  She wants to wear them all day long or have nothing to do with them.  We sometimes have to wear shoes even when we don't want to #lifeishard

Helping in the kitchen

Year 1: safely watched from the Bumbo on the floor

Year 2: pulls up her own chair, we talk through recipes and she dumps an entire cup of oatmeal on the floor in attempt to add it to the mixer

Bath time:
Year 1: fun every other day activity
Year 2: everyone involved gets wet and the regularity depends on our schedule

Bed time:
Year 1: pretty set schedule & easy to get to sleep
Year 2: routine but much longer song/dance/read/cuddle time to get to sleep

Art projects:
Year 1: fun for everyone
Year 2: fun for everyone

Exiting a fun activity

Year 1: bye bye fun times

Year 2: screaming fit when asked to leave a fun activity.  We ignore the fit and talk about the fun time we had.  We assure her we will return.

Furry friends

Year 1: smiled at all furry creatures and that made us smile

Year 2: she grabs everything furry and tries to love on them.  Laying on things that will allow it and pulling whiskers are favorites.  We gently pry poor furry creature out of the grips of our loving toddler.  Smile and move on to the next thing.

Grocery shopping:

Year 1: curious about everything in the cart and wanted to touch/feel it all

Year 2: curious about everything that goes in the cart, examines it and throws it overboard.  That or she opens the box and starts eating.  Darn vanilla wafers are too tempting!

Out to eat:

Year 1: curious about the restaurant, loved playing/eating her food, and happily sat in her high chair checking out the place.

Year 2: curious about the people sitting around us, eats for 5 minutes, steals my lemonade and we request booth only seating in efforts to contain our toddler.  It's our only hope of getting to eat our meal.

I'm hoping we'll learn new tricks for parenting at each age so that we make a great parenting team.

Have you noticed changes in your parenting as the years go by?

The Highlights

This week flew by at my house.  Lots going on and a busy weekend ahead.  The weather was mostly gorgeous and temps in the 70s are making me excited for fall.  Bring on the plaid, the scarves, the cardigans, the pumpkins and the football!!

The best parts of our week were:

1. I've been wanting a pair of Nickel & Suede earrings forever.  I've mentioned them several times and decided that the color of the month - OLIVE - had to be mine.  They are perfect.  So light, so pretty and I've worn them nearly every day this week.  Do you own a pair?  I'm thinking I want a metallic pair next.

2. Kevin had his first day of school this week.  It's his first year as a professor and he's teaching three college courses.  Olive the "supah he-row" gave him a sweet send off.  We made homemade Butterfinger blizzards to celebrate.  It's our favorite dessert - half fat vanilla bean ice cream, chopped butterfinger and a splash of milk.  Voila!

3. I have been VERY impressed with the party supply section at Wal-Mart lately.  I'm hosting a baby shower tomorrow and am really loving the oval plates and all the patterned napkins.  Come back next week for a whole shower recap.  The theme is woodland creatures for a precious baby boy!

4. I just started reading One Thousand Gifts this week and am enjoying it.  Have you read it?  I've read her devotionals before, but never any of her books.  I'm hoping that I can stick with my goal to open a book and read for fun most days of the week.  Somehow it's easier to mindlessly scroll through social media instead of opening a book.  I'd like to change that!

5. Olive learned how to give a big THUMBS UP this week.  

She practices all the time and thinks it's hilarious. 

Also, Dum-Dums are her favorite thing ever.

Any fun plans for your weekend?  

We are traveling to visit family and planning to pack in a lot of fun.

Linking up with HodgesPodges, Oh Hey Friday!
 MeetattheBarre,  FridayBlogHop,   HighFiveforFriday, FiveonFriday, FridayFavorites,  FridaysFabFavorites and Momfessionals

Biscuits are Not My Specialty

I am good at making cookies, cakes, desserts, salads and plenty of dinner options, but my bread making skills are lacking.  I rarely make bread, biscuits or rolls.

I love a good biscuit, but have never been able to make delicious ones.  I've tried a few recipes and they are all just fine.  They taste pretty good and are okay right out of the oven.  However, none of them are as good as Cracker Barrel's biscuits. Those are my favorite and I tend to measure all other biscuits against them.

I tried this recipe from Graceful Little Honeybee that called for shortening and I was underwhelmed.  I think I should have made the biscuits a little thicker, but I didn't really love the taste.  They were pretty, but not very soft.

We just got some homemade apple butter, have yummy jelly options

and nothing to put them on.  I bought a tube of store bought biscuits to make as a sad alternative to homemade ones.  So I'm wondering if any of my sweet readers have a great biscuit recipe for me to try???  Pretty please :)

Summer Wardrobe Favorites

It's been a long time / 4 months since I've posted any outfit posts on my blog.  I get dressed every day and try my best to look cute, but I'm finding it's more challenging to document my outfits now that my style is more casual.  I'm not working outside of the home and we have been crazy busy with moving this summer.  Now that we are settled in Indiana, I'm getting into a better routine and having fun putting together cute outfits.

These are the things I've been LOVING this summer:

 1. FLOWY FLORAL TOPS + SKINNY JEANS

top - JCP (new), jeans - Old Navy, flats - Payless & earrings - Kohls

top - JCP

 2. PRETTY DRESSES

dress - JCP (new) and shoes - Clark (new)

 3. CHAMBRAY + shorts, skinny jeans & skirts

chambray & shorts - Old Navy

floral tennies - Target

 4. EMBROIDERED TOPS

top - Old Navy

 5. PATTERN MIXING

stripes and polka dots or stripes and floral

 6. STATEMENT NECKLACES

It's far too hot for scarves so big earrings or big necklaces win :)

 What have been your go to looks this summer?

Thanks for stopping by my blog!!

Linking up with Trendy Wednesday, IFeelPretty, WhatchaWearingWednesday
RealMomStyle, LetitShine,
 StyleElixir, RacheltheHat, ThePleatedPoppy, CasualFridays

RandomWednesday,GetYourPrettyOn, TheBestofStyle, FavoriteFashionFriday

 

Tuesday Talk: How to Hire a Babysitter

We hit a huge parenting milestone last week.

We hired our FIRST BABYSITTER.

We had used family members to babysit in the past or opted to bring Olive with us or not go to events where children weren't welcome.  That's the reality of living far from home/family when you have a little one - am I right??  Anyways, we now live 2 hours from our family and it's doable to ask family for help, but we wanted to have someone local that could come and help us out as needed.

We asked around a bit and found some children of co-workers that might have been good options, but none of them could drive yet.  We were really hoping for a sitter that could drive.  So we decided care.com would be our best option.  I'd heard great things about it from local friends and friends in Mississippi who had all used the site. 

Have you ever used care.com?  What did you think?

Kevin got the ball rolling by finding a coupon code for 20% off your first month and set up a profile.  He posted a job and started looking through our local options.  There were tons of options so we both logged on and started favoriting potential babysitters.

We were looking for:

college aged girls in our city

with their own car

experience babysitting

local references 

as needed availability

and okay with cats

We immediately got people responding and we send messages to our top 4 choices.  We heard back from one girl right away and she said she'd love to babysit for us.  We exchanged messages back and forth and she offered to come over ahead of time so she could meet Olive and we could ask her some questions.  We also collected information from our other favorite girls in case we wanted to hire them in the future.

We set a date/time and she arrived early.  She was quiet, but friendly and Olive started sharing toys with her right away.  We asked questions and were happy with the answers she gave.  It was a good first interaction and we felt good about hiring her to babysit.  Here are the questions Kevin and I came up with together to ask:

Babysitter Interview Questions:

1. Getting to know you things

(school, major, activities, hobbies, etc)

2. How long she's been on care.com

3. Have you ever had an emergency while babysitting?

4. What kinds of things do you call the parents for while you're babysitting?

5. How do you handle toddler tantrums?

6. Are you okay with cats?

7. What do you charge to babysit a two year old?

8. No cleaning required, but are you comfortable cleaning up toys and things that get played with?

9. What's your availability like in the future?

10. References, cell phone number, etc?

I had a list of questions on my phone and just talked through them.  I didn't write anything down as she was talking.  Kevin asked some questions and so did I.  She asked if Olive had any allergies or special care requirements.

We hired her for four hours on a Friday night.  We left notes with contact information, timeline of the evening, likes/dislikes for Olive and directions for how to use the tv.  We left a frozen pizza, fruits, veggies for dinner and cookies for dessert.  Olive was excited when she arrived and wanted to start playing right away.  We talked through our plans and Olive's routine for the evening.

We told Olive it was time for us to go and she immediately asked for me to hold her.  I gave her a big hug bye and then she started telling our babysitter bye.  I assured her that grown ups come back (thanks to Daniel Tiger), we loved her and that we'd see her soon.  We all walked to the door and said our goodbyes quickly.  She teared up (and so did I) and we waved/said I love yous.  Kevin gave me a hug when we got to the car, assured me they would be fine and reminded me we were going to have a great evening.

We arrived at our party and I texted the sitter once to check in and make sure that Olive had perked up after we left.  She said everything was fine and they were having a nice time.  We enjoyed the evening and texted again when we were on the way home and hurried home to a sleepy Olive. 

Everything went well for all of us and we are looking forward to using our babysitter again.

Linking up with my favorite ladies today!

Join us with your favorite post from the week :)

 

(Starting from the upper left:)

Beth - Our Pretty Little Girls ~ Michelle - Grammie Time

Keri - Living In This Season  ~ Christina - Waltzing In Beauty

Tara - Mrs. Coach Sims ~ Lauren - Simply Free

Jess and Katie - Sweet Little Ones ~ Whitney - Polka Dotty Place

Becky - BYBMG ~ Elizabeth - All Kinds Of Things

Sarah - Abiding In Grace ~ Amy - Go Forth and Mother

Emily - Morning Motivated Mom

<div align="center">
<a href="http://polka-dottyplace.blogspot.com/" title="Polka-Dotty Place"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwfCFr9AXEgv3ETndnI3C_JCdTWaSGQwXVTve-oOCmkLLslJ1CQVNenqCb8uwChwspoznlUrtsuQvC-xZN5-IJRxUz_72ZAxTQVgafE1le_cD3Jw6kmaIVmHuxpFlREuoqf9bfiXIA6A/s1600/TuesdayTalk.jpg" alt="Polka-Dotty Place" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

An InLinkz Link-up

Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

I promised on Friday to share the recipe for

Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins so here it is.

I shredded my zucchini extra fine so my muffins had a bit of a green tint to them.  They tasted delicious so I didn't mind the green.  They tasted like moist banana muffins.

I found this bread recipe on Oh, Sweet Basil

and made a few changes to make MINI muffins.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c flour

1 t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

1 t cream of tartar

1/2 t salt

1/4 c canola oil

2/3 c sugar

1 egg

3 ripe bananas

1 c finely grated zucchini

1 c chocolate chips

Directions:

Combine most of the dry ingredients in a bowl.

In a separate bowl combine the sugar, oil and egg.  Add in the banana and zucchini and mix well.  Then add the flour mixture in a little at a time until everything is combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips last.  Grease your mini muffin tin.  Recipe makes about 30 mini muffins.

Bake at 350 for 15 - 17 minutes or until lightly browned.

My cute helper:

They were best right out of the oven so I'd recommend eating them right away.

Enjoy!!

TGIF

We've had a pretty low key week at our house.  Olive was sick for several days at the beginning of the week and thankfully she's better / no one else got sick.  She doesn't get sick often so it was really scary to have her be feeling so terrible.  We have all recovered and had plenty of good moments during the rest of the week.

The best parts were...

1. Olive started feeling better so we made muffins for breakfast one day.  I tried a new recipe for Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins and they were really tasty.  I'll share the recipe next week.  She woke up asking for muffins every day so I can only assume that means she loved them.

2. My master bedroom is coming together nicely.  Summer is a great time to be redoing rooms because every store is STOCKED with bedding and home goods.  I'm guessing for the moving to college crowd??  I found a great sale on bedding at Target and had good luck finding pillows at Marshalls, Target and Tuesday Morning.  I didn't bother moving my cat for the picture because he thinks he's one of my throw pillows :)

3.  I love adding rugs to a space to make it feel like home and found both of these new rugs at Tuesday Morning.  The olive entry rug was $12.99 and the larger rug for Olive's room was $29.99.  Great deals for great rugs!!

4. We've been busy running errands the past few days and 2 year old Olive has decided to start boycotting the front seat of the cart.  She'd much rather sit in the roomier backseat.  If it means she's not screaming and will be my pleasant shopping partner, then I am happy to oblige.  Thankfully Bun-Bun was happy to listen to me and sit up front.  We made fun stops at Hobby Lobby, Sams and the BMV.  We picked out perfect supplies for a woodland creature baby shower I'm hosting next weekend, got some food for the week, got IN license plates and shared a soft pretzel!  Any story that ends with sharing a soft pretzel is a good one in my book.
 

 5. Sometimes my hubby volunteers to cook dinner.  This usually means picking up take out from a place that he has a coupon for and I happily agree.  We tried out this new pizza place in Terre Haute this week.  The pizza was delicious and it was the first pizza we'd ever picked up in a bag.  No pizza box - wrapped in foil then wrapped in a paper bag is the way they do it.  Never seen this before.

Hope you have a great weekend :) Thanks for stopping by.  We have a busy weekend full of welcome to the department Indiana State picnics, plans to play outside and just enjoy the weekend.  Hope your weekend is a good one.

Linking up with HodgesPodges, Oh Hey Friday!
 MeetattheBarre,  FridayBlogHop,   HighFiveforFriday, FiveonFriday, FridayFavorites,  FridaysFabFavorites and Momfessionals