Thank you, Dr. Karp!

I've been reading a book called, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block, " by Harvey Karp, and I think it's awesome!!!  It has so many techniques about how to really communicate with your one to four-year-olds, and they work so well!  One of my favorites is using fairy tales to teach good behavior.  It works almost every time with Aubrey.  She'll stop whining, crying, or whatever she's doing, and just get sucked into these silly little fairy tales that I make up.  Like today, Aubrey got out of bed when she was supposed to be taking a nap.  I was resting, and told her she needed to go back to bed.  She, of course, refused.  So, I told her a story about a little piggy named Penny who didn't like to take naps.  I won't go into lots of detail, but the main point was when Penny the Piggy didn't take naps, she was cranky and upset at dinnertime, because she was too tired.  Aubrey loved the story and asked for one more.  I told her one more (about naps), and then asked her to go back to bed.  She said, "okay Mommy," walked back to her room, crawled in bed by herself, and rested.  We've been able to get her to LOTS of things by making up little stories, and it's WONDERFUL!  So for any of you parents with toddler, I highly recommend "The Happiest Toddler on the Block."

    The same author (Dr. Karp) wrote "The Happiest Baby on the Block" as well.  I just got that DVD along with another one called "Dunstan Baby Language," and I'm excited to put them to use with the new baby.  Both of those are just for soothing infants ages 0 to 3 months, and they seem to make a lot of sense.  So, I'll let you guys know how they work out for me. :)  I'm kind of addicted to parenting books.  I don't read a lot of fiction, because I'm constantly reading books about babies, pregnancy,  parenting, child development, etc.  I love them! 

    So, we'll see how the transition from one to two kids goes for us.  I've been trying to work really hard with Aubrey to get her to be independent in things that she can be.  When the baby is born, she'll have been potty trained for close to a year, and now she doesn't really need help using the potty anymore unless she's somewhere that doesn't have a kiddy seat (she falls in, haha).  She's completely night potty-trained too, so that's nice.  She's very well adjusted to her new room.  I wanted to make sure she had plenty of time for the switch, so it didn't seem like the new baby kicked her out of her room.  She of course has her bad days, but she's improving everyday at listening.  I just love her to death!  So, the challenge for me will be to make sure I still give her lots of attention when the baby is born, since it's been just her for the last 3 years.  It will be harder for me with a baby in tow, but I still want to take her to all the fun places we do now, like Lagoon, Kangaroo Zoo, bowling, parks, etc.  And finally, I'll try to just read to her a lot while I'm nursing the baby, since that's pretty time consuming at first.  Oh man, I hope I can juggle all of this.  It's getting slightly nerve-wracking the closer I get to delivery, but all I can do is my best!