Cherish My Daughter

The first time I saw her, she was laying on her stomach, with her face delicately resting on her two hands. It was like a rosy glow surrounded her. I thought she looked so feminine. Definitely a girl. I HAD A GIRL!!!!! But she was too big for her incubator. I knew she couldn't be, but wasn't she cold? She'd been without me for so many hours. I wanted to hold her. I cried. HMG was 4 days late! At about 30 weeks of pregnancy I began to have strong contractions. My doctor was concerned I'd deliver early and quickly put me on bed rest. I was instructed to lay on my left side perpetually. I could stand to go to the bathroom and make myself a quick sandwich or set up prepared food for the baby--but that was all. I was advised to avoid the stairs as much as possible. My initial thought was, I'll finally get some rest! Our son was 15 months old at the time, and I was truly exhausted chasing him around with my big belly and low energy. My husband was working ...

Mocha Baby is potty trained! Be sure to watch my YouTube video above on the subject. I won't repeat in detail what I shared there, but wanted to focus on my step by step approach of getting Mocha Baby to understand the steps. In the past, I followed the model from the book Potty Training in Less than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin and Richard M. Foxx. When I bought the book for training our son, I imagined he'd be a master at going potty and never have any accidents once we were done. Despite the clever title, the book lets the reader know up front that accidents will happen, but it does a good job of laying out a step by step method of communicating to your child what is expected and helping parents to have realistic expectations of what their child may be able to do. I still recommend it. In following that book, we would set aside a day for potty training and select one parent to stay with the potty training child while the other parents leaves the house with the siblings for as lo...