Sadie Stuff

What a sweet, funny, loving and crazy little girl!

I haven't written much about Sadie lately. Sometimes it seems like Kylie has all of these big events going on and Sadie is always just along for the ride.


I wanted to dedicate this post to her. Sadie has reached a lot of milestones in the last few months. In December, she potty-trained herself. I was quite shocked with how easy it was because she is a creature of habit and hates any change in her routine. She would give me the signs that she needed to use the restroom and I would ask her if she wanted to use the big girl potty. She would say no and I would proceed to change her diaper, but still each time I would ask. Then, one time I asked and she said yes. She hasn't looked back since. She was actually a lot easier to potty-train then Kylie was and I thought Kylie was easy!


I have learned that all I need to do to get Sadie into a good routine or good habit or even just to reward good behavior is to give her an M&M. Maybe giving sweets is not the best thing for her teeth and health, but I figure that one (or three) M&Ms a day out-weights the alternative of a tantrum-throwing tot and a screaming mom.


Sadie is always such a mix of emotions. One minute she is singing and laughing and then the next she is throwing an award-winning tantrum. She is pretty good at them. I think that her emotional side comes from my gene pool.

She can make me laugh so easy by saying the simplest things. The other day we were driving into the Lowe's parking lot and I hear Sadie in the back seat say, "Wow, that is a cool car!" I looked over and there was a fancy racing car. I had to laugh because she doesn't get her knowledge of cars from me. She says "cool" all of the time now. It is so cute with her little voice.


Sadie's binkies "broke" a couple of months ago and she had to throw them in the trash. She seemed okay for a couple of nights, but then the agony began. She would wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom or something and would not want to go back to bed. She would start to cry and I would try to get her to calm down, but that just made her cry louder. Then I would tell her that she needed to calm down or else... but that just made her cry louder. Then I would put her in time out, but that just made her scream and scream. Finally, I would stand there in the room with her while she was screaming and just ignore everything she did until she calmed down and told me that she would be quiet and go to bed now. This whole process took from 1-2 hours and would wake up everyone in the family if not everyone in the neighborhood. Now, it may seem that I was being hard on her, which I was, but I didn't want her to use me as a replacement for her binkie. She wanted me to hold her and rock her to sleep. I had to give her the chance to find someway to soothe herself back to sleep without her binkie and without me.

I finally found a solution to getting her to stay in bed and put herself back to sleep and the solution involves M&Ms. I also decided to get Kylie involved because I felt that the peer pressure in this situation would be good for Sadie. Each night the girls get three pretty rocks. If they get out of bed asking for a drink, wanting to be held, wanting to talk, etc. they loose a rock (having to use the restroom does not count). Each time they get out of bed they loose another rock. In the morning, we look to see how many rocks they each have and then I give them an M&M for each rock that they still have. The first couple of nights were rough for Sadie and she lost all three rocks, but she caught on pretty quickly that I was giving M&Ms to Kylie and not to her. And she realized that her tantrums weren't going to make me cave in either. She usually does really well now, with an occasional problem night (just ask the Pieronis. They witnessed the last one!)


Moving has been a little difficult for her, with a little backsliding on the good sleeping habits and a couple amazing tantrums. But she is the one that will come up to me at anytime of the day, during any type of activity and say, "I love you mom." When we got to the hotel at Lackland AFB she walked into the front room and said, "I love my new house." We laughed because it really was quite a step up from how we had been living, but it also made me hopeful that she would love our new house in El Paso.
She is such a good playmate for Kylie and they love to spend time together. They have really become each other's best friend. Sadie will take toys from Kylie, and they will fight over toys, but Sadie will always be the first to say she is sorry.

She will be turning three-years old very soon. And I am excited to see how she learns and grows over the next year. She always has a surprise to throw our way and keeps us on our toes. We love her energy, hugs, kisses and jokes.