Buh-Buh Graduation

Time for a little Pomp and Circumstance. Time to pop the bubbly wide open. Buh-buh's don't live here anymore (well, all but one...more on that later)!

Some of you are probably scratching your head saying "well, these people don't have babies...they have toddlers." DING! DING! DING! Your answer is correct. There's only one child here that refused to give it up, and that child was Olivia. Wait a minute. It is possible that her parents (i.e. - Josh and Jenna) didn't want to give it up. Or wait another minute. It's possible that they were just lazy. Mentioned many times in the past is Olivia's temperament: drama queen. Never knowing how she is going to be from one minute to the next is excruciating. Deciding on the proper time to take away the buh-buh was difficult, and we thought it out about five times prior to this. Something always seemed to get in the way: Olivia is not feeling well or Olivia might just gauge my eyes out at the mention of us saying we don't have one for her, or eh, it is just easier to give her the damn thing in order to keep the peace.

Anyway, we'd had it. I'd had it completely. She was reverting to wanting to be a baby again. Peeing in her pants every single time (thank goodness the poops made it in the potty). She was saying that she was a baby. Wanted to be held like a baby. And while she is still the baby in our family and I really wanted to hold on to her babyhood, it was more than time to let it go. After all, she is turning 3 this February. That was enough. I was done. And we made that decision last Thursday to take them away on Friday after daycare. In the past we'd give her a head's up about the buh-buhs (on those attempts which did not exactly work), but this time we didn't tell her and just sprung it on her on Friday when she asked for one in the evening.

We were nervous about the reaction. Would she scream at us for hours on end? Would she cry all night long? Seriously, will she come gauge my eyes out while I'm sleeping? Basically, the reaction was this: NOTHING. And the look on her face was: CONFUSION. We did receive some whines and a little bit of crying throughout the weekend along with some grumpy attitude, but it was easy. And we are kicking ourselves for not just doing it sooner.

Then we did what we did with Bea. The heaven story. People, the heaven story has gotten us through the removal of buh-buhs and diapers. And we will probably use it when the time comes to get rid of lovies and blankies. Read about the heaven story here. It saved us. I'm not sure of anything else that would have worked. The next day the buh-buh fairy brought Olivia like her hundredth play baby in exchange for the buh-buhs. With Olivia, we even bypassed the "safe" Nuby sippy cup that seriously could pass for a bottle. She's on the straight-up sippy cup now.

So, what happened to all the bottles and Nuby's? Josh threw most of them away. I have one of the Dr. Brown's saved. Just the bottle part of it. The ounces are clearly labeled. I've found a good use for the bottle in making mixed drinks. You know...an ounce of tequila here and an ounce of pomegranate juice there...the bottle makes it easy to get the right amount of ingredients for cocktails and to do the mixing all at once...I bet you didn't see that tip coming!

Anyway, congratulations Olivia (with new baby from buh-buh fairy)! You have officially graduated to being a little girl:

Weekend Update

Bottles Be-Gone Attempt #1: Failed

We came. We tried. We lost the battle (this time, at least):

About 10am on Saturday, Bea says she wants her bottle.

Josh goes to the kitchen and fills a sippy cup with milk. He comes back and hands it to her.

She takes it and then hurls it across the room. And then she cries.

Five minutes go by. She’s still crying. Josh says, “Do you want to get her a bottle?” I say, “Sure, but I am putting water in it.”

I go to the kitchen and proceed. I hand Bea the water-filled bottle. She stops crying for about 10 seconds to examine the bottle and notices that it is a clear liquid instead of a white liquid. She takes it and hurls it across the room. She goes back to crying.

The crying is temper-tantrum like – laying on the floor on her stomach, hands in her arms, and kicking her legs. She cries for about another five minutes.

I couldn’t take it and because she hasn’t been feeling well, give in.

I go back to the kitchen. She follows me. Still crying, she watches what I am doing. I empty the bottle and fill it with milk. I go to hand it to her and she runs away crying. I try to tell her that it is her “buh-buh” but she won’t have anything to do with me. Then, she finally takes it. She looks at me through her tears, and well, it was very hard to make it out, but she said two words. The second being “you”. The first being either “hate” or “thank”. I believe it was “thank” because she doesn’t know the word hate, at least as far as I know. I wanted to cry right there on the spot.

She doesn’t drink that much of it.

Believe me, I wanted to try again. But that same night, she somehow starting saying “please”. So, when she was in her bed that night, she said “buh-buh” and I just looked at her thinking I was going to get her the cup, and she said, “Mama – pwease?” I was shocked. “Pwease, mama...Pwease. Pwease.”

How could I not give her what she wanted?

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Olivia started clapping this weekend! And she is standing up (with help), but is enjoying her ability to be tall and do something new.

Up to our Ears in Bottles

I want to get Bea off of bottles. Badly.

I've tried once, but it seems like an impossible feat due to Olivia having bottles as well. One sight of the bottle and that is all I will hear about from her.

So, I've come up with a plan which I have thought about for over a week now. I'm not sure I like it, hence my hesitation for writing about it or trying it out. The plan and background is this:

We use Dr. Brown's bottles that come in nipple sizes of 1, 2 and 3. Number 1 is for the newborn, slow eaters who need to figure out that sucking furiously will get them something to eat and not overwhelm them with the amount of flow. Number 2 is the middle, where Olivia is at now. Number 3 is where Bea is – the aggressive eater nipple, where if you turn the bottle upside down, it will just kind of pour out.

What if I switched Bea back to a number 1 nipple? But then I offer her a sippy cup with milk, too? Give her the bottle first, which she will most likely refuse, then offer her the cup. If everything plays out like it should, she should realize that the cup offers her more milk upfront and she doesn't have to work for it. She would refuse the bottle and take the cup because those darn bottles should be worthless, right?

She takes everything else from the sippy, but not milk.

I don't think it will work like that at all because I've definitely got a stubborn one that I am working with. It's a weekend project, I'm sure, and one that will be filled with tears and frustration from all parties involved. Do I really want to spend the weekend doing this? No.

In any case, I'm open to other ideas, but one thing to remember is that we will still have bottles openly present because of Olivia, which makes things a little more difficult.