Whining, Poop, and Burritos

Maddy is in the process of mastering the art of whining, perfecting it to the point that it drives Mommy and Daddy crazy.... The whining has escalated as of late, so much so that both Greg and I have been scouring the web for tips on how to deal with it! Of course you are supposed to remain calm, never raise your voice, and all will be quiet and peaceful in the house - yeah right! The most useful bit of information we found is that a toddler adjusting to a new baby in the house sees the new baby crying and Mommy and Daddy running to her rescue giving the new baby anything she needs, so logically the toddler assumes that whining and crying will get her whatever she wants. So you are supposed to ignore the whining so the toddler learns that she won't get what she wants that way. Easier said than done. On top of that, this weekend Maddy decided to give us an encore of the poop smearing incident since Greg didn't get to witness it the first time around (a couple of months ago). I won't go into details and I did not take pictures this time but needless to say, it is really one of the most disgusting things I've had to deal with that I can recall. Of course that same day she wore her training underwear - she insisted - and was dry most of the day and actually went poop on the potty 3 times (4 poops that day!?!?) The joys of raising a toddler. I have to remember these are just moments in time that we will get through - the rest of the time Maddy continues to bring joy and happiness to us with her smiles, laughter, and caring and fun loving nature. Caitlin has been going with the flow for the most part - she'll be a month old in two days which I can't believe. She's been an amazing sleeper so far - we started swaddling her (the burrito) at night last week and she's gone anywhere between 4.5 to 7 hours straight without waking to feed! She has a lot of awake time during the day and feeds quite a bit so I am sure that helps. Hopefully this trend continues.... So things in the Mullen household are busy, active, loud, but mostly fun and enjoyable. Maddy's preschool had a family BBQ on Friday night which was fun, and Sunday we went to the 4-H fair in Westford. Last weekend we stayed at the cottage in York which was great. Grammy and Bubba babysat for a couple of hours so Greg and I could go out to a nice dinner at Blue Sky for our anniversary (5 years!!) Maddy loved the beach and the waves, which were huge due to the hurricane.