New ideas for Stella

Sleepytime jar:

I took a standard sized pickle jar, spray painted the lid pink (because I happened to have that color in the storage house) and tore off a strip of washi tape & stuck it on the side of the jar. I labeled it "Stella'sSleepytime  Jar." Then I picked up a bag of brightly colored pom-poms (in medium & large sizes) from Hobby Lobby & put them in an empty recycled plastic lunch meat Tupperware container. Every time Stella goes to sleep in her bed at night or for her nap by herself, when she wakes she can put a pom-pom in the jar. When she fills it she gets a reward for being such a big girl. 

Now, there are two catches. One, she doesn't actually go to sleep by herself. What I mean is her going to sleep without us rocking her. I said I wanted to rock her to sleep as long as she would let me. She still lets us rock her and I truly love that time but the problem is at naptime. Unfortunately, she inherited her father's lack of ability to nap.  See, she doesn't really want or need to nap much anymore (ugh, I was hoping to drag the nap out until kindergarten) but I have things I need to get done or finish doing around that time. I was spending a lot of time rocking her only for her to say 20, 30, 45 or even 60 minutes later, "I'm not sleepy." Now, I can usually tell within the first 5-10 minutes of me rocking her if she's going to nap but I tend to give her at least 20 just in case. Sometimes she surprises me & gives up the fight just like that. Sometimes I'll ask her, "Are you sleepy?", but sometimes she beats me to the punch and will volunteer such information to me. This is just a jumping off point. Eventually I would like for her to put herself to sleep but I realize it's going to be a gradual process. 

And two, when I started this a few months ago she had just turned 2 1/2. I figured she wouldn't get the cause and effect concept of sleep = pom-pom = reward since it would take over a dozen to fill the jar. So I told her if she could get three pom-poms in the jar, she'd get something special. She got two pom-poms two nights in a row with Donald. Isn't it funny how they do things so much better for one parent than the other?!then it took almost another two weeks, I believe to get the third one. But she did it and for her reward she chose to go see the fire trucks at the firehouse. 

Finally she filled the jar (it took a few months) and she said when she was filling it she wanted to go to a restaurant. She chose Captain D's. I'd taken her there several times for lunch and she was spectacular-like so, so good. Unfortunately that was not the case that night. She did not listen well at all and all around the night was not what we were going for. While she was filling the jar, she kept getting the name mixed up over and over. It was Captain D's, then Captain Cook, Captain Hook, Captain Catfish,  Captain Hookfish, and finally Captain Hook's Fish. To be fair, we were introducing her to Peter Pan at the time since she fell in love with Tinkerbell at Christmas.

We pass Captain D's at least twice a week on the way to her school and every time she points and says, "That's where we went-to Captain Hook's Fish."

This does seem to be working. Every night we read then hug and kiss goodnight and she crawls into bed. In the beginning we had to lay or sit beside the bed and rub her back or sing to her but now we can, for the most part just sit in the LaZ Boy while she goes to sleep. 

Now when we all wake up in the morning I'll ask Donald "Does Stella get to put a pom-pom in her jar, Daddy?" or tell him in front of Stella (if I put her to sleep), "Daddy, did you know Stella was a big girl last night and went to sleep all by herself?!" I make a big deal about it and she gets so excited and runs to her room to get the containers. Every time she says, "It's almost full" even if we'd just put the first one in. 

Quiet Time Busy Box:

I mentioned the above as a way to get to this. I'm fine for the most part that she isn't napping. Yeah, it's an adjustment for me mostly but she typically goes to bed at night earlier without the nap so it's good for me and D. We can watch TV, finish up things around the house, etc. but I still feel that she needs downtime for herself and away from me. 

I'd like for her to stay in her room for at least half an hour but ideally, an hour would be so much better.  I feel like she really needs the time alone and I need it too.  The problem is she doesn't like closed doors. And she went through this phase (is kind of still going through it a bit) where she freaks out at the mere mention of her staying in her room alone. She would completely flip out, burst into tears and cling to me like the world was ending. As many times as she's not napped, quiet alone time in her room has only worked maybe twice. 

And those two times the dog was in the bedroom with her. The first time it was amazing. She stayed in for over 45 minutes (I think). The second time didn't work so well.  Another problem is keeping Bandit in the bedroom. Soon after I leave he wants to walk out and she gets upset. I tried putting the doggy gate up and it works but she's still not a huge fan because even though the door is open and she can see through the gate she can't come and go as she pleases.  

I found this cute box at a consignment shop where I consign and had a credit. So essentially it was free. I decided to use it as her one busy box versus a different one for each day of the week. 

 Ingredients for Stella's busy box:

Foam notebook & foam stars/numbers/transportation vehicles-Dollar Tree. She can stick these to the unruled pages of the notebook along with the stickers below. 

Dress up and carnival/fair stickers-Dollar Tree. I've never seen these. They are essentially paper doll dress up stickers & I was happy to run across these.

Sand 2 minute hourglass-Dollar Tree. I'm not really sure why I got this but I think it will come in handy for something eventually. She can at least learn some concept of time with it.

***I also bought a pair of kids scissors for her to practice with, but I don't want her alone with scissors so those stayed out of the box and will be used with me.

Melissa and Doug On The Go Water Wow-Amazon

I was really excited to run across this at a birthday party a few weeks ago. They have a fairy themed one which is the one I first saw. I looked on Amazon and found a 3 pack and immediately ordered it. This would be great for the car, a restaurant, sitting at the pool or the beach just taking a rest, waiting for dinner to be ready, really anytime. The best thing is it's reusable, you just have to wait for it to dry and you start back over. I got the fairy one (to be set aside for her birthday), an animal one (which we gave to a friend this past weekend for her birthday) and the makeup and manicure one for the busy box. As soon as I gave this to Stella today she wanted to fill up the pen and get to work. She played with this several times today. Big win!
***She carried this around all day yesterday as we did errands and 'painted her" while she rode in the buggy at the store. This is such a wonderful thing.

Usborne Wipe Clean Alphabet Book-I ordered this back in the fall (along with a ton of other books-love this company) during an Usborne party and just set it aside for when Stella was older. She's recognizing letters now and thought it might be a good time to introduce this. This will probably be something we'll need to work on together but I saw it in my cabinet of things set aside for her, random gifts and other miscellaneous things and thought I'd throw it in to see how it works. 

Fruit and bug themed lacing cards-Dollar Tree

Melissa and Doug wooden dress up kit-I picked this up this past Fall at a kids consignment sale and gave it to Stella for Christmas. This was a huge hit. It doesn't fit in the box but it's something she can playboys quietly and will be stored along with the box. 

Frozen Matching Game-Stella's LollyPop gave her this for Christmas. She loves matching up the cards and gets excited playing it by herself or with us. 

In addition to the busy box, Stella also has access to her IKEA Raskog arts and crafts cart I put together in February with Play-Do, coloring books and markers/crayons/stamps, plus the bazillion books in her room.

Top: markers, stamps, paint, crayons

Middle: Play-Do, kinetic sand, Aquadoodle mat & markers, Crayola Wonder Paint

Bottom: coloring books, wipe-off marker book, Cheerios play book, sensory book that she made at Jitterbugs

Good Girl Jar

I'm a big fan of positive reinforcement. I try to constantly point out the good she did, discuss how proud I am of something Stella did, how happy I am when she listens or is a good girl, does something by herself, etc. Stella has not been listening very well lately and I saw this trick on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try. Instead of me reminding her that she's not listening, I'd like to continue to remind her when she does listen and hope that she will see that it makes me happy and in return-her happy.

 Basically you take a container ( I used a glass dressing bottle) and JellyBeans (that's what the lady used in the blog, but you could use mini pom-poms, Skittles, M&M's, etc.) Every time your child uses their manners, does something the first time you ask, cleans up toys without you asking, makes a happy plate, is well behaved when you venture out or have a play-date, they get a Jelly Bean for each of those things. Eventually, they add up in the bottle and the kid gets a reward. It can be as small or elaborate as you like. I used washi tape about halfway up to label it so I'm thinking when she gets to that point she'll get a reward and then another when it's full. Whenever I'm out and about, I'm obviously not going to carry around a pocket full of Jelly Beans and the container, so I'm going to keep record of it in my phone and when we return home she can add them into her jar.

Thanksgiving 2015

*Obviously, life has been busy if I'm just getting around to posting a Thanksgiving blog the day after Easter. Ha!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The week of Thanksgiving, I went down to Sylvester on Monday.  Donald headed down to the beach to do some fishing with his dad and I had a little time to myself, with Stella and Mama and Daddy. Tuesday I took Stella to The Agirama although it's not called that anymore. Now, it's Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village and is owned by ABAC. As a kid in Worth County, nearly every field trip from Kindergarten until my senior year in highschool was at this place. It was boring to me because we'd been so many times and at the time, this sort of thing didn't interest me.  I thought it might be crowded thinking schools would be out and people might be visiting like me, but nope. The complete opposite. We went hours without seeing anyone other than the people working there. And this place isn't that big. When we walked into the schoolhouse around 12:30, the lady said I was the first person she'd seen all day! Stella started acting a little off not long after arriving and actually passed out on my back before lunch.  

This log was so fascinating to me. Info is on the plaque below this picture.

The man inside gave Stella a bag of scratch to feed the chickens with. So of course, we had to go hunt down the chickens.

I've never seen this style house before-where there's a porch through the middle of it.

This was a nice relaxing morning for me. I walked around quietly while Stella snoozed for about an hour. The weather was beautiful and chilly out. I could smell the smoke from nearby chimneys and we could pop in here and there into a house to warm up. I was surprised that I really didn't recognize anything other than the water wheel on the side of the mill, even after all those visits here.

Stella and I stopped at a local pizza place called The Rolling Pin and ordered a cheeseburger pizza. That was our compromise since I wanted pizza and she wanted a cheeseburger. I think she took one bite, but maybe not. This really told me she wasn't feeling good.

Sunset at Mama and Daddy's

My sweet girl did not feel good on Tuesday. But gosh, I love watching her sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My parents were pet-sitting for their friends, Karen and Eldon Hogue. Mama and Daddy had their four dogs, plus The Hogue's three, my one and Michael's one so basically they were running a doggy daycare for the week.

Stella loved this one here. Molly, I believe. Molly let Stella carry her around for the longest time.

We made pumpkin pie together which I so enjoyed.

She tooted on the counter while mixing the bowl and got quite a kick out of herself. For the longest time if you asked her what this was a picture of she'd say "Stella making pumpkin pie tooting on the counter."

I picked kale fresh from the garden before I left, cubed up a butternut squash and roasted it, then added cranberries, pecans and goat cheese. I made a simple citrus vinaigrette and massaged it in to the kale before putting the other ingredients in. I called it a Harvest Salad. It was so, so amazingly good. Mama and Daddy really loved it too.  I could probably eat it every day. 

Michael and Cercei showed up Wednesday afternoon and Stella was so excited to meet Cercei. She immediately got kisses from the newest member of the family.

I found this Thanksgiving top at a kid's consignment sale and couldn't wait to get it on Stella. She looked precious in it. I think she found herself quite attractive too.

I took her outside for an attempted photo shoot.

We even got a few snaps of Cercei and Uncle Mikey.

 Then Daddy showed up. She was a very happy girl to see him again after missing him for a few days.

M

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. The weather was warm and D, Stella and I sat out in the cookhouse and dined. Everyone joined us later for dessert. We were happy Don and Wanda joined us for supper and Wanda brought cake. Stella just can't get enough of it.

 She even tried sneaking it!

Michael brought adult, party-sized Jenga and he, Mama and Daddy played a game.

Daddy finally made it fall!

Stella enjoyed playing in the pine straw like the animal she is.

Then we got to watch another beautiful sunset.

We went out to Grandpa's that evening to visit for a bit before retiring to Don and Wanda's. Stella got to play with Andi and Alli and had such a blast with them.  

On Thanksgiving I gave Stella a box to open. In it was a get ready for Christmas kit. It had Christmas pj's, an old fashioned looking Christmas lights necklace that lights up and a boxed Christmas 3 CD set from Lolly.  Stella went to sleep in her Christmas pj's like a little angel.

Friday morning it was a little cooler. Stella enjoyed playing outside while it warmed up. Don't you just love her outfit?!

She said she had to go potty but I think she just wanted to show me her booty. She likes doing that to me and D.

Stella really loved climbing the tree in Nene and Grandaddy's front yard. So many great ones here.  Love our little girly girl tomboy.

Then Stella wanted to go swimming in the hot tub. She loves getting in here to catch the frogs and swim with them.

That evening the cousins came over with Paul while Ginger was out Black Friday shopping.  Stella and Ivy played a little game of tug-o-war.

We had a little Thanksgiving get together at Don and Wanda's, then D and I headed over to Mellow Mushroom with Daniel and Jaycie for a while.

Saturday we drove back out to Mama and Daddy's. D watched the Georgia game, we packed up and headed back up to Mableton. Normally we'd stay until Sunday but I'd been down since Monday and we had a birthday party to attend Sunday afternoon. 

However, no one could leave before attempting to get a picture of all 48, I mean, 9 dogs at Crazy Lady Acres.

This is a cocoon/chrysalis that Daddy pointed out to us a while back  and Stella really liked riding around on the golf cart trying to find it.