toddler

21 Books My Child Has Loved

July 3, 2015 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com Leave a Comment

I absolutely love to read. I can become so completely absorbed in a book that I barely remember to carry out basic human necessities for survival. For a while, Asher wasn’t that into books, but he has since really come to love them. Here is a list of his favorites thus far. Some he loved when he was under a year, some he loves now but all fall into his ‘read this book 1000 times in a row’ category. I’ve tried to list them by order of age, starting with books for younger babies and moving up to older toddlers.

1. Pudgy Pals – this is a book from my childhood and it’s very simple with sweet illustrations, my brothers and I loved it and so did Asher:

2. Baby be Kind – this is a wonderful book that teaches such virtues as kindness, sharing and others. It’s great for babies who are starting to interact with other children:

3. B is for Bear – this book is exactly what you’d think it is, but it’s a great way to teach letter’s and early reading. Asher loved the touch and feel aspect of it:

4. Moo, Baa, La La La – a delightfully silly book about animals and the sounds they make.

5. Red Hat, Green Hat – a great book that helps kids learn colors and never failed to make Asher giggle.

6. Good Night Moon – a classic go-to bedtime book, Asher loved it, I loved it, and its fun to try and find the mouse that is in every picture of the room:

7. Good Night Gorilla – this book contains almost no words, but that doesn’t stop it from conveying a sense of mischief and fun. Can you find the balloon in every picture?:

8. The Owl and the Pussy Cat – beautiful illustrations and whimsical writing, Asher loved having this read to him over and over…and over:

9. The Snowy Day – a book about a little boy’s adventures on a snowy day, it does a great job of conveying the curiosity of childhood:

10. I Know a Lot – a fun book that teaches children about opposites:

11. Each Peach Pear Plum – a great “I spy” book about some of the classic fairytale characters, with gorgeous illustrations:

12. You’re Getting a Baby Sister – when I was pregnant with Bennett I got Asher several books to prepare him for the arrival of his baby sister, and this one was by far the favorite. It does a great job of expressing the excitement of a new sibling, while also keeping it real:

13. Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes – a wonderful book that helps children learn colors with a heart warming moral at the end. Asher LOVES this book! He is obsessed with singing the song!:

14. The Pout-Pout Fish – a book about learning to see the best in ourselves. Another book Asher is currently OBSESSED with:

15. Gideon and Otto; Best Friends, Lost and Found – Asher loves all the books by Olivier Dunrea but this is one of his favorites. It’s totally sweet and endearing:

16. The Baobab is Big and other verses from Africa – a collection of short verses that are sure to delight and inspire:

17. 1 to 20 Animals a Plenty – an amazing book that helps children learn their numbers and animals through the use of rhyming. Gorgeous illustrations!:

18. Boom, Snot, Twitty – another beautifully illustrated book that is all about learning to be content with whatever comes your way:

19. Coco Can’t Wait – this was my favorite book when I was 3 years old and I am just so thrilled that Asher loves it too. It conveys the special bond between grandparents and grandchildren:

21. The Dream Child – this book does a great job conveying the whimsy and magic of childhood and is another book from my childhood:

22. The Book with No Pictures – Asher laughs every time we read this. It’s a great book that teaches children the power of the written word:

What books do your children love?

A Glimpse of Our Last Year in Photos

June 26, 2015 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com Leave a Comment

I finally dusted the cobwebs off of our nice camera and uploaded all the pictures onto my computer. Below are some of my favorites. This has made me realize that it’s rare for Raf and I to be in the same photo. I’m putting ‘get some nice family pictures’ on my none existent to-do list. The sofa series at the end completely slays me.

He loves his backpack!

We took a trip to NYC in October and Asher decided he HAD to caress and kiss my BARE belly in the middle of sheep’s meadow…

Halloween 2014 – last minute DIY Jedi Knight costume. Second Halloween in a row that we had head colds the week leading up to it and thus had to scrape something together last minute.

Proof that we really did start taking weekly belly shots but then we moved and life happened and we totally flaked…sorry Bennett!

That time Raf grew his beard out and we had to document it before he finally succumbed to my pleas for him to shave it off.

Yet another attempt at documenting my pregnancy with Bennett like we did with Asher.

ASHER’S FACE IS EVERYTHING!!! Seriously, I have never seen a sweeter expression of love or pride than this one on his face as he gazes at his brand new sister for one of the first times.

My sweet Bennett.

“The sibling relationship is the longest relationship we will have with anyone on this planet” – Grandma Carol

The aforementioned couch series. Enjoy!

How to Stop Thumb Sucking

April 7, 2015 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com Leave a Comment

When Asher was a baby I tried desperately to get him to take a pacifier, and it worked…for a while. As soon as he discovered his thumbs, all bets were off. It was love. At first I wasn’t all that concerned about it, because favored both thumbs equally, but after a while I started to notice that he was exclusively sucking his left thumb and I knew it may end up being an issue.

After both his pediatrician and dentist told me that it was important for his teeth and jaw that he stop sucking his thumb by the time he was two years old, I started looking into ways to get him to break the habit.

After Asher’s first birthday I decided that it was time to get serious about breaking the habit. The first thing I tried was Dr. Thumb. After waiting for an insanely long time for the thing to arrive, I threw it on Asher’s hand and was satisfied that it seemed comfortable, (although it did leave red marks on his hand after a while). He was supposed to wear it for 3 weeks to break the habit, but about half way through the poor guy got sick and I decided that we would table the thumb sucking issue and revisit it at a later date. As soon as I took the contraption off he began sucking his thumb again as though he had never stopped. Over all the Dr. Thumb was a lot of effort for poor results, so I knew moving forward that I wanted to find a better solution.

For the next year Raf and I tired to only allow Asher to suck his thumb at nap time and bed time, but it was an up hill battle – the thing was attached to him for crying out loud! I began noticing that he was sucking his thumb more and more frequently throughout the day and while talking to him about it and reasoning with him worked for short periods, his thumb always made it’s way back into his mouth.

Since we potty trained him right before his second birthday, I decided to wait a few months before piling on more change and cracking down on his thumb sucking.

In early February I knew it was time. His potty training was firmly established, if not totally complete, and we had had a month to settle into our new house. With the impending arrival of a new baby, we were in the calm before the storm. I ordered Mavala Stop from Amazon.

When it arrived, I read the box which stated “with small children, the efficacy can be compromised as their taste buds are not fully developed and they may like the bitterness of the product. Not for children under 3 years old.” I felt confident that Asher’s taste buds were developed enough, so I decided to try it out anyway.

I told him that I had something that would help him stop sucking his thumb like his dentist and pediatrician wanted, which would help protect his teeth. I asked if he’d like to give it a try and he was pretty excited and curious about it. I painted it on his thumb and explained that it would taste really yucky if he put it in his mouth. I guess he didn’t want to take my word for it, because he promptly yet tentatively stuck his thumb in his mouth. All traces of doubt that it would taste horrible immediately vanished as he made disgusted sounds and asked me to wipe his tongue off. Once I had successfully washed the taste out of his mouth, he asked me to apply more of the polish to his thumb.

A few hours later, it was time for his nap and as I put him down I reminded him not to suck his thumb because it would taste awful. He rolled right over and went to sleep without putting his thumb in his mouth, although it did get pretty close.

He woke up from his nap crying. He came out of his room with his mouth open, his tongue sticking out and drooling. The poor guy must have sucked his thumb in his sleep. I once again helped him wash the taste out of his mouth and to my disbelief he again asked me to reapply the polish. I explained that it didn’t have to be reapplied for a few days, which really upset him.

He never sucked his thumb again. Seriously. I did reapply the polish a few days later, but I really didn’t have to. He had practically quit cold turkey. It was amazing!

If thumb sucking is always this easy a habit to break, I hope all my kids suck their thumbs! It’s just so much more convenient than pacifiers. His thumb was always accessible and I never had to worry about searching for lost binkies, which also meant I wasn’t able to take his thumb away, so getting him to stop could have been a huge trial, but thankfully Mavala Stop worked like a charm! I also think that waiting until he was old enough to understand what we were trying to achieve was a huge factor in the success.

Potty Training Asher // 24 months old

March 27, 2015 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com 1 Comment

I decided to potty train Asher the week before his second birth day. I had actually tried and failed miserably twice before that, largely due to the fact that both times I has spontaneously decided to potty train him with zero preparation and with no help. So this time, I decided I needed to call in the big guns. So I called up my second cousin in-law, Rachael, who has successfully potty trained 3 kids and got some pointers.

Here is what we did:

First I picked a weekend when Raf and I would both be home and that we didn’t have anything else going on. This is key, because you want two parents around during the first couple days (which are the hardest) to tag team the child, so you don’t get frustrated and give up. I also ordered LOTS of toddler underwear and training pants (I already had a potty chair and potty book). I stocked up on dairy free dark chocolate chips to serve as a reward/incentive and I also created a potty chart, with a column for pee and a column for poop and placed in a prominent spot on the fridge, which he would be able to put a sticker on and track his progress each time he successfully used the potty. Lastly, I got an egg timer to use to get him to stay sitting on the potty for a certain length of time.

As the weekend approached both Raf and I talked with Asher about how exciting it was that he was going to be able to start wearing undies and using the potty just like mommy and daddy. We also read him his potty book and took him to the bathroom to watch us go whenever we went. He was definitely interested in the process.

My plan was to go cold turkey with the diapers (except during nap and bed time).

As soon as I heard him wake up on Saturday morning, I bolted out of bed, whipped his diaper off of him and sat him on his potty. You see I had noticed that many mornings he woke up dry but would pee shortly after waking up, so I wanted to try to catch this first pee in the potty to help him understand what we were trying to accomplish. I set the egg timer for 1 minute…and nothing happened, BUT he still wanted to sit there so I set it for another minute and lo and behold he pee’d in the potty!!! Raf and I made a HUGE fuss about it, gave him a chocolate chip, let him put a sticker on his chart and even had him help flush the pee down the toilet. It was a serious stroke of luck, because now he understood what he needed to do.

For the rest of the weekend, Raf and I would have him sit on the potty every 30 minutes or so and he had many successes, but also many accidents. When the accidents happened we didn’t make a big deal of it, but would just have him help clean it up, though the mess was normally limited to his underwear and talk to him about trying to get it in the potty next time. He caught on quickly. He soon was telling us when he has to go and his chart was covered in stickers.

Pooping was another issue altogether. It’s not that he was having accidents, but rather he was nervous about pooping on the potty, but also didn’t want to soil his undies. This lead to some very dramatic and wriggly productions, where he would run around the room whining, needing to poop but not wanting to, until he couldn’t hold it any longer and would run and sit on the potty. But it was so painful to watch, the poor guy was clearly in distress and if it weren’t for our high fiber diet I’m sure he would have become constipated. Luckily he got over his anxiety after a week or so.

Whenever I went out with him, I’d have him use the potty before we left, and I’d bring several changes of undies and pants along with us. I’d then have him use the potty when we reached our destination. I put a plastic bag and a small towel on the seat of his car seat to protect the seat from accidents, but luckily, to this day he has never had one in the car.

About a month after we started potty training him we moved into a new house and the first night we spent there we had a major poop accident. There was poop on my arm, the floor, and even the wall. Don’t ask. He was so distressed by this event that after that for several weeks he would only poop in his diaper while he was sleeping.

It’s now been 3 months and it’s still a work in progress. I’d say he’s mostly potty trained but not entirely there. He still waits until he has pee’d in his undies a little first before telling us he has to pee. He’s much better with pooping, but he goes back and forth between pooping in the potty every time to pooping exclusively in his diaper while he sleeps for a couple weeks. He often wakes up from nap or bedtime dry, but it’s not consistent enough yet for us to do away with diapering altogether. We still need to remind him to use the potty whenever we see him doing his little wiggly, ‘I really need to go’ dance. When asked if he has to go potty he nearly always replies “No pee-pee potty.” He is not to be trusted. But we have long since retired the potty sticker chart as well as the chocolate chips. We still make a big deal about it whenever he successfully tells us he has to use the potty before wetting his undies or when he poops in the potty. He now almost exclusively uses the regular toilet (without a toddler seat by straddling the seat) and this has made clean up a lot easier.

He has even started insisting on going by himself and he makes everyone else leave the room. This is all very well and good, but he isn’t quite ready to go by himself entirely and still needs a bit of supervision. The other day I taught him how to do a ‘nature pee’ while we were at the park and the next day he insisted on using the toilet alone so I left him and after a few minutes I peaked back in, only to find him standing there with his pants around his ankles, holding is undies out (which were around his knees) and peeing right into them and all down his pants and onto the carpet. Other times when he’s insisted on being left alone, we return to find nearly a whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet, or sometimes the actual roll in it’s entirety. So I’ve taken to leaving him him a couple squares to wipe with and then taking the rest of the roll with me when I leave the room. It certainly has been and continues to be an adventure.

All in all despite still needing to remind him to go, it’s really nice to not have two kids in full diapers.

The Hug

September 17, 2014 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com 1 Comment

Asher, my sweet, 21 month old boy hugged me tonight UNPROMPTED for several minutes!

My son, is peculiar about touching. He gets this from me. Sometimes when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night I am not allowed to touch him, but I can lay beside him and sooth him, it’s the hardest thing for me. He pushes my hand away when I rub his back, I usually have to force hand holding, and any hugs and kisses that he gives me are only given after I ask him for them and even then are over before I can really relish them. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an extremely loving and happy child and I can hold and carry him and even cuddle him (sometimes) but he doles out physical affection sparingly.

Well, tonight, after his bath I was getting him ready for bed and I had just put his diaper on and stood him up on the bed so I could help him step into his pajamas, when he pushed them away, leaned into me and pressed his soft chubby cheek to my chest, wrapped his tiny arms around my body as best he could and sighed contentedly. For a second I wasn’t sure what he was doing, because this LITERALLY has NEVER happened before. Once I realized it was a hug it then took me another second to relax and enjoy it because I was expecting it to end almost instantly, but it went on and on for MINUTES. My heart nearly burst. It was perhaps one of the sweetest moments of parenthood that I have experienced yet.

It’s an interesting thing. You bring a tiny human into the world, and you love them fiercely, but it seems very one sided (especially at first during the blob stage). You love and love and love and they take and take and take. You don’t mind because the love of a parent is selfless love, but a small part of you is desperate for their approval. To know that you’re doing a good job and that they love you too. Then one day this perfect little soul will show you that they love you, completely under their own initiative. It is the sweetest thing.

It’s moments like these that make all the hard times, the sleeplessness, the exhaustion, the I.just.want.to.wring.my.hair times, the I’m.at.my.wits.ends time all melt away.

I always want to remember these moments.

Asher’s Monthly Growth Series // 12

December 11, 2013 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com 1 Comment

1 Year! 20 lbs 5 oz – 30 1/4 inches – 6 teeth – 18 flights – 2 frenectomies – mastered walking – very affectionate – loves his blanket – always wants food – claps, waves gives 5 & touches – says “hi” – played in first snow – likes to dance – enjoys drumming – eyes are light greenish brown

Jet Lag and Babies // How to Cope

November 21, 2013 by lauren.anvari@gmail.com Leave a Comment

Anyone who has traveled across multiple time zones knows full well that jet lag is a rough state to be in. You’re exhausted, your internal clock is all out of whack, you find your self wide awake at 2 a.m. and yet struggle to make it through lunch without your face flopping into your bowl of soup. All that is bad enough, but when you have a jet lagged baby on your hands, it is down right brutal.

In my experience, young children are either completely immune to jet lag or completely derailed by it and you can never be quite sure which outcome will occur. Having a baby that is jet lagged is no picnic, particularly because this usually means that you, yourself will also be jet lagged which only compounds the situation. The rule of thumb is that it takes 1 day per time zone to get over jet lag, but that time frame can be quite a bit extended if you don’t actively try to help your child adjust to the time change. You see, when adults are wide awake at 2 a.m. they can be disciplined enough to lie in bed quietly in the dark and try to rest but when a little one is wide awake at 2 a.m. it’s time to PLAY and EAT!

So I share with you some of my tips to help get your tiny tot back on track.

Firstly, stay hydrated.

Next, try as best as possible to stick to your regular nap and sleeping schedule, even if this means that you have to wake them up. Raf and I found that when Asher was awake in the middle of the night, the ONLY thing that would get him to sleep was to put him into our Beco Gemini baby carrier and wear him. This of course meant that one of us had to be awake, so we took turns, but honestly, being awake in the dark with a sleeping baby was preferable to chasing an active baby around from 2 a.m – 6 a.m. Just saying.

Lastly, sleep when they sleep! And be lenient.

Asher was hit super hard with jet lag both going to and coming back from China. It was awful. I literally could not keep him awake during the day no matter what I did, after days of struggling to stick to his 2 hour naps I decided to just let him sleep as much as he wanted (not to mention I was really tired too). So we both slept from 8 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at which point I bolted out of bed and woke Asher up (who was still sleeping like a log), we ate lunch and 1 hour later Asher fell asleep sitting up in the middle of the living room floor before toppling over onto his face. So, like I said, be lenient, you will only stress yourself out of you are too ridged about getting back on track right away. Do your best, but also gauge the situation and make adjustments where necessary.

Good luck!