Extreme Potty Training

Just finished watching Good Morning America's piece on extreme potty training. In it, a 4-month-old baby, who cannot yet sit up on his own, is shown peeing in the toilet. Once I picked my jaw off the ground, I logged on here to... discuss.

What the heck is Elimination Communication?
In the Elimination Communication method, infants as young as just two months are helped to use toilets. Parents go off non-verbal cues, timing and just plain intuition. Proponents say going without diapers saves time and cuts down on environmental waste. The average American family with babies in the household spends an average of $75 a month on disposable diapers, or almost $1,000 a year.

This apparently is not unusual in other more traditional cultures in other parts of the world... but was anyone else disturbed by the video of the 4-month-0ld with a digitized wee wee being held over a toilet? Can't babies just be babies?

Preschool Pressure
An Arlington, Va. mother – Betsy Rosenblatt Rosso – says she was shocked when the principal of her daughter, Zoe's, preschool said the 3-year-old had violated the school's potty training policy and needed to stay home from school for a month, owing to one too many accidents. This launched a firestorm of debate from moms all over the country. Are we pushing our kids to potty train too early? Why punish a toddler for wetting her pants?

Potty training was a condition of my daughter's preschool enrollment as well. She was 2 years old and 9 months when we took her to school. Her potty training was shaky, at best. Add to that, the arrival of her baby brother and a birth defect that affects her bowel/bladdar nerve control, and let's just say everything went out the window when she started school. Her teachers were so patient, and there was a loooooong period when we just had to resort back to pull ups. We tried everything... praise, sticker charts, and positive reinforcement... threats, bribery, commando (have you ever tried to clean diarrhea on carpet?). It was a VERY emotionally stressful situation for everyone, especially my daughter. I can honestly say, in my adult life, potty training was the HARDEST thing I have ever done. Pregnancy, labor, and delivery not even close. Covering mass murders, piece of cake. We even pulled her out of school... feeling like failures... but then it was like we were punishing her for something she was not physically and emotionally ready for.

She is 4 now, and after YEARS of trial and error, and a surgery on her spinal cord, she is technically potty trained. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have accidents. She exceeded her accident "quota" long ago... but the school never kicked her out.

Potty Boot Camp
At one point in my desperation, a friend of mine gave me the 3-Day Foolproof Guide to Potty Training. It's an extreme, no holds barred method that requires the parent to pump their kids full of liquids to get them to pee frequently, hopefully on the toilet. I've also seen a 24-hour Fast Track version of this same method. What's the rush? This potty training, boot camp style, is for the convenience of the parent. One child psychiatrist in the GMA piece compared it to child abuse. I wouldn't go that far, but I can say that it backfired on us. My daughter started refusing to go, the harder we pushed.

Now my son is approaching 24 months. And I am DREADING potty training all over again. Granted, he doesn't have the birth defect, which should technically make it a little easier. But many moms have told me boys are harder to train. I have no idea what approach to take, and when to start, but I do know we need to start sending him to preschool pretty soon. Looks like I'll be searching for one that I can maybe pay, to do the potty training for me! How's that for the easy way out? Does that make me a bad mother... not if I want to maintain my sanity.

Don't wait for your nails to dry

Valentine's Day Deals

Less than a week to go. Don't procrastinate. That is, if you actually celebrate the holiday. (My husband refuses)

Here are a few discounts to share...

Flowers:

Today's Groupon: $20 for $40 worth of flowers from FTD.com (Limit 2 per person)

Proflowers: 40% off 12 assorted roses with free red vase

Costco: $14.99 for a dozen long-stemmed roses (in stores only)

Teleflora.com: $10 off all flowers

Jewelry and Gifts:

Groupon: The Vault Fresno $100 for $225 worth of fine jewelry

Redenvelope.com: 30% off

Mamapedia.com: $12 for 8x8 hard cover photo book

Dealpulp.com: $20 for $50 worth of jewelry with free shipping on shopDI.com

Tiffany.com: free shipping on all gifts

Living Social: $20 for International Star Registry (one personalized star with a 16x12 certificate)

Kohls.com: 20% off everything (enter code ACT4TWENTY) plus free shipping if you spend $75 or more (SWEET75)

Chocolates:

Costco: two 1-lb. boxes of See's for $26 (normally $16.50 per box)

Shari's Berries: 15% off purchases $29 and up

Wine:

V.Sattui in St. Helena: 20% off pink wines

Bevmo.com: buy one wine, get the second one for 5 cents

Madera Wine Trail: $20 pre-sale ticket for Wine & Chocolate Weekend, Feb 12th-13th

Spa:

Mystique Medical Spa Fresno: 40%-50% off treatments including facials, laser hair treatments, and body wraps

Keep checking daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social for your area

Restaurants:

Restaurant.com: $10 for $25 worth of food

Keep checking daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social for your area

Cards:

Dollar Tree has 2 for $1 or their nicer handmade-looking ones are each $1

Or make your own using a photo printing site.

Lay off the Chicken Nuggets

Here's another reason to cut back on the Happy Meals at McD's. Giving your toddler fatty and sugary processed foods could lower their IQ later in life!

British researchers tracked over 3,000 kids in a lengthy study... (click here to read more) and overall, kids who ate junky fast-food diets at age 3 had a small drop in IQ by age 8.5, compared with kids eating healthy foods. The researchers also took into account factors that often affect IQ like socioeconomic status, parental education, and the mother's diet during pregnancy.

Obviously you don't need experts to tell you that fast food is bad for your little ones. But both my kids LOVE french fries. Yes, I am guilty of giving my 4-year-old and not-yet-2-year-old french fries. In n Out, McDonalds, Red Robin, they never met a fry they didn't like. Does this make me a bad mother? Am I ruining their chances of attending Harvard and ruling the world? Granted, we don't indulge in fast food that often... maybe once a week to once every two weeks... but this latest study certainly gave me pause. Yeah, I was raised by one of those tiger moms... where education and achievement was everything. Obviously some of those ideals have rubbed off on me when it comes to me kids. I'm already thinking about violin and piano lessons for my 4-year-old, but only after she's signed up for dance, gymnastics and tennis. When my toddler son had trouble talking and enunciating, I started asking around for a vocal coach. Little did I know, treating them to fries could be canceling out all my efforts! That's it! We're laying off the chicken nuggets. You know... those couple points on the SAT could really make a difference. LOL!

Kids' Artwork: to Treasure or Trash?

So the other day... TVNewsMom... under the cover of darkness, grabbed a stack of papers off her nightstand... and furtively threw them in the trash can. Immediately, the guilt crept in... but was quickly pushed back. Better to be a little heartless than a hoarder.

So goes the daily inner battle of a mom who appreciates her child, the budding artist, but appreciates a tidy house even more. Apparently I am not alone. In fact, the dilemma has so permeated popular culture that the New York Times had to weigh in, in an article titled, "When Children's Art Takes Over the Home."

In it, a 36-year-old mother of a prolific preschooler says, "I do think my kids are awesome. I tell them how great they are. But we’re not going to build an addition on the back for every piece of crayon art they’ve ever done.” Another mom, an artist herself, describes how her daughter's artwork is taking over the home, "Some 20 paper grocery bags full of Josie’s art already occupy the storage room, the basement and the closet." I'm assuming, much like at our house, the coveted surface of the refrigerator is already full?

TVNewsMom is fairly new to this... Syd's only been in preschool for a year-and-a-half, and when she "graduated" last year, I sorted through everything, and saved one box of her most impressive work. But lately she's amped up her production levels. I mean, like at least 5 drawings a day. With each, she lovingly declares, "This is for you, mom, because I love you! I'm putting it next to your bed so you can see it every time you wake up!" Day after day, the little pile grows, pages of stick figures, upside down houses, and a rainbow of oddly shaped flowers... all evidence of her undying devotion to me and her crayons.

Somebody help! Apparently there's an entire book devoted to this topic. Dr. David Burton's Exhibiting Student Art. While this guide is aimed mostly at teachers, the author has some tips. He says, store the artwork in two boxes. One is a temporary file, the other, more of a permanent vault. Each piece can include a makeshift museum card. Write the title of the piece, the age of the artist and the date. He says to involve the child in the decision-making process.

Other moms swear the digital age has solved this dilemma. They either scan or take pictures of their child's pieces and create digital photo scrapbooks to document their kid's creativity. But I don't know if a photograph can quite transport you back to these tender times, like the smell and feel of the original can. The crooked lines, the imperfect cuts, the texture of too much glue.

What say you? Are you a keeper or a chucker? And how do you justify it? I take comfort in the fact that this is just a phase... but once she's in elementary school and the artwork subsides... then come the report cards, book reports, and school projects. And as I recall, those are a lot bigger than just a piece of construction paper covered in glitter. But at least they're a lot cleaner!

To Friend or Not to Friend

When did "friend" also become a verb? When Facebook took over the world, that's when.

My Facebook friend (used here as a noun) Tracy Correa just wrote a great article in the Fresno Bee called "Teen Crisis: Should they friend parents on Facebook?" Thankfully, my children are only 4 and 2, and hence, too young to be on Facebook. (Although I wouldn't put it past my 4-year-old daughter, who is 4 going on 14!)

But plenty of parents are or will be facing this issue before they know it. When that time comes, I, for one, would like to think that my daughter would be among the 16% in a recent Kaplan survey that said parental friending "was a condition of parental approval for starting a Facebook page." Yet the same survey also says 40% of the teenagers surveyed simply ignored their parents' friend requests! How is that even acceptable? The kids complain of having to censor themselves because their parents are able to monitor their posts. Well I say, "GOOD." Maybe that might make you might think twice before posting risque pictures and profanity, or evidence of illegal activity, or becoming an online bully.

Kids need a private space, I get that. I promise, as God is my witness, to try very hard not to read my daughter's diary, if she were to ever have one. The thing is, THE INTERNET IS NOT PRIVATE. Let me say that in all caps and bold again: A FACEBOOK PAGE IS NOT YOUR PRIVATE SPACE. Depending on your privacy settings, all it takes is a friend of a friend to view your posts or your page, and that could lead to trouble.

What kids (and some adults) have a hard time realizing (until it's too late), is that Facebook posts have real life consequences. Did you hear about that 22-year-old waitress who lost her job because she vented about a customer in her Facebook post? Or how about that Illinois high school student who could be expelled for ranking his female classmates on his Facebook page? The list of cautionary tales could go on forever.

Bottom line: parents need to be monitoring their children's pages. Not as a friend, but as their parent.

But there are rules for parents too. This may be the best part of Tracy's article. Facebook etiquette for parents who are friends with their teens... ROTFL! oops. sorry. so uncool.

-- Don't post embarrassing comments on your child's page -- better yet, refrain from commenting.

-- Don't share embarrassing photos that you think are adorable but your child most likely does not, and refrain from "liking" said photos.

-- Don't "tag" your child in photos (which then automatically shoot directly to his/her page) unless you ask permission first.

-- Don't send friend requests to all of your child's friends -- people you mooched from his/her friends list.

-- Don't post reminders on your child's wall such as, "Don't forget to wear your retainer."

-- Don't make critical comments about the appearance of their friends in photos (i.e. that girl is showing a little too much cleavage).

-- Don't try to be cool by using terms like LOL, BTW, LMAO and the like -- especially if you have no idea what they mean.

Feel the Burn: Laser Hair Removal

Who's tired of shaving? Me! (I would raise my hand, but I didn't feel like shaving my underarms! It's winter... so what???)


SO after years of painful and ugly razor burn and ingrown hairs (I may have gone to Berkeley but I do not embrace the "natural" look), I was lured by a Groupon for discounted laser hair removal at Vivande Med Spa in Fresno. The deal, at the time was $150 for three treatments. After consulting my girlfriend who had had it done somewhere else, I bought six treatments for $300. I have since seen even better deals on Groupon, like today's: six treatments for $100 at Sanctuary Med Spa in Merced.

Anyways, I've gotten a lot of questions from curious friends and relatives about the process and the effectiveness of it. So I brought along my camera to my last treatment. Remember, when you go in for each treatment, you need to have about 3-5 days of hair growth so the laser can target the hairs. And your skin will be sensitive a day or so after treatment, like a sunburn, so it's best not to shave right after. Basically DO THIS DURING THE WINTER, when you're in turtle necks, not tank tops.

It's worked wonders so far... I just finished my fourth laser hair removal session, and I barely have to shave anymore. And the hair that does grow in is very thin and wispy. This is one beauty investment that I feel is well worth the cost... and pain. No pain, no gain, right? It's still January and I'm saying, bring on summer!