I love my backyard more than ever this summer. I’m getting obsessed with gardening, frequently pluck herbs I’m growing for cooking and love, love , love that my kids have an open, safe and green place to play. We may live in Queens but in our backyard we have a huge Willow tree, a gorgeous Maple and a towering Pine tree. A cardinal family lives in the Pine and eats from our bird feeder several times a day. There are butterflies and squirrels and occasionally a mangy stray cat. We have a porch off our kitchen, right above the garden, where we BBQ and eat dinner on hot summer nights. It’s become something of an oasis for us all. Right now I’m all about homemade Sangria, BBQ ribs, Croquet and the kiddie pool. Here’s to summer!

After three years of living here, this past March we decided to rip down a dilapitated shed (great for storage but pretty ugly) that looked like this:

We put up a new wooden fence and did a little landscaping. This is what our yard looked like in May:

And this is what it looks like now. Ta-da!:

So we’ve officially started potty training. Fritz is two and a half years old. They (whoever that is) say that when your kid starts showing interest in the potty by tugging at their diaper, telling you when they go and things like that, that they’re probably ready for the potty. I took wearing the inner part of the potty on his head and walking around the house with the other part on his foot as a sign and decided to commence training. I haven’t read anything or even looked online, I’m going off instinct and what friends may have told me, in regards to our method. We’re on day three and It’s going pretty well if I do say so myself. Here’s what we’re doing…I got Fritz excited by buying him a special tub of jelly candies that are specifically for when he goes on the potty. I call them a ’special treat’. He got very excited about the fact that he would get these candies when he used the potty. We’ve started by taking off the diaper first thing in the morning and drinking the normal three, giant cups of juice, which typically yield two full diapers within the hour. Without the diaper on getting the first ‘pee pee’ takes a while. I’m assuming that this is part of the training, not just letting it rip in your diaper when ever you feel like it. So far we got one ‘pee pee in the potty’ on day one, then put the diaper back on. Day two we got two ‘pee pee’s in the potty then wrapped it up for the rest of the day. After each of these sucsesses he gets his ’special treat’ and we high five, and it’s all very thrilling. I do everything short of dancing the cabbage patch each time he goes. Read the rest of this entry »

I swear I am going to stick forks in my eyes if I have to read Mr. Mischief, Arthur Saves The Day, Arthur’s Tree House, Mater and The Ghost Light and Goodnight Moon (in that order) one more night. It’s probably the 20th consecutive night that I’ve had to read those books, exactly in that order, for Fritz to go to bed. I guess I really shouldn’t be complaining because the whole bedtime thing has gotten better, especially when do I read these books, but for the love of gawd, there is only so much one woman can take. We read them all with the light on and for the finale, Goodnight Moon, we turn the lights off and say our good-nights. I’m not kidding when I say as soon as we sit on the bed to read these books I roll my eyes behind Fritz’s back. The worst of all by far is Mr. Mischief. I once praised this book, even putting it on my Lifesavers list. Now I fu*king hate this book with a passion. The book is little, but LONG! The subject matter is mind numbing. I even tried to buy Miss Naughty, just for a change, and he isn’t having it. I know some of you are going through the hell that is repeatedly reading the same children’s books night after night. What books do you loathe?

Fritz won’t let up and his little adorable fingers are in shambles. His nails couldn’t be any shorter. It pains me to look at them. No matter how much I pull his hands out of his mouth or tell him to stop, nothing helps. And it’s ruining all our photos!!!! Does anyone else’s kid bite their nails?? Help! BTW this stuff THUM doesn’t work!

Fritz has recently dug up these bright orange plastic safety goggles. I’m pretty sure they came with a toy Home Depot Chain Saw he got for Christmas. Well, they have become is new favorite accessory. Since last Tuesday he insists on wearing them out of the house every single day. The first day he wore them he happened to be dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and a F train tee shirt (black with an orange circle with an F in it) and It just so happened that these goggles matched the outfit perfectly….if you were a white rapper from the mid nineties. When I saw this post I realized that he was trying to look like Seth Green in Can’t Hardly Wait! With Jennifer Love Hewitt. I didn’t even know he’s seen that movie??? Read the rest of this entry »

 

Since putting Elmo in Grouchland on our watch instant Netflix que, over 3 months ago, we have probably watched EIGL 500 times. That is not an exaggeration people. It’s by far his #1 request next to ‘trains’ meaning Thomas & Friends. I always knew this was coming, the videos on repeat thing. Over all this is not a bad one to have to watch over and over, because you know, from time to time, you end up just siting and staring, and singing the damn thing. EIGL is cute, campy and filled with all the favorite Sesame Street characters. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past 2 weeks every single time I look over at Fritz he’s biting his nails. It’s the most frustrating thing. It’s only 2pm and I’ve probably told him to stop doing it at least 100 times already. Maybe I’m the one with the compulsion? (According to the following articles, this is not suggested). Is he stressed? Nervous? Is this comparable to thumb sucking? Maybe Fritz has picked up on my anxiety? There are worse things in the world but I hate the idea of Fritz having a nail biting habit for life. Anyone else’s toddler nail biting? Fritz is also a hair twirler. Which as far as nervous habits goes is the least offensive, actually kinda cute. We haven’t encountered any finger sucking yet so that’s good I guess. Anyway, I did a little research on nail biting and here’s what I found: Read the rest of this entry »

For a while there we were in the clear. It was smooth sailing. It was all good in our hood. Now all of a sudden Fritz has decided to start screaming his lungs off as soon as I put him to bed. I’m talking horror show, blood curdling screams. The only way he will stop is if I put him in our bed, something I tried the first time he pulled this BS and now it’s been 4 nights in a row!! Then when I decide to go to bed I scoop his little ass up and plop him into his own bed…then sure enough, in the middle of the night, the screaming starts and will not end until I bring him in our bed. This is a very, very, very bad routine were getting into. I can’t bare to listen to the sheer terror in his voice so it’s really difficult to just let him scream himself back to sleep. Ugh, I’m at a loss. Anyone know what I need to do now?? Help a Hipster Mom out.

This morning it's business as usual. Wake up 7:30, downstairs, coffee, juice. This is the routine. It's what we do every morning. Then I open the dishwasher to put something in and it's always a struggle with fritz. He likes to, of course, grab at some big knife and swing it around his head or something, but this morning he grabs a glass. He takes off in the other direction with it and hurls it in the air. Smash! Me: Nooooooo! Him: Haahahhaha. Then there is the hitting. Why hitting? Why not hugging or kissing? And let me tell you what really sucks, the yelling. I just don't know what else to do. You take their little arms in your hands and kneel down to their level and firmly say, No. Let go and he's right back at it, hitting throwing or kicking (they are interchangeable). Honestly I'm at a loss for how to handle it? Anyone else? What's your method? I suppose this is it. Let the discipline begin. Am I going to be good at this? I can hardly discipline myself. Yikes. Im scared.