Kricket's Happy Korner: Volunteering

Let's talk about volunteering and how awesome it is. :) If you didn't know already, I volunteer for Foothills Animal Shelter. I go in on Saturday's and walk dogs for 2 hours, and then spot clean the kennels. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Not me, but you get the idea. 

My previous volunteering experiences have not been as good. As a teenager, the youth organizations of my church gave us a lot of "opportunities" to serve, and most of them I did not like. Going and singing to old people at a nursing home always scared me (thanks traumatizing experience, Brownies). And going to other people's home to clean it, worst idea ever. "Service Projects" always made me cringe because it generally involved helping other people. I'm not really a people person.

Don't get me wrong, I love people. I'm also pretty good in social situations and I'm even comfortable standing up and giving talks or teaching a class. It's just, given a choice between helping people or picking up dog poop... Hand me the pooper scooper please.

So what made me think of spending my Saturday afternoons volunteering? Well, for a while now I've dreamed of the time when the kids would all be in school and I'd have entire afternoons to my self and the idea of volunteering at an animal shelter always appealed to me. Then, one day it dawned on me that I didn't have to wait that long.

I'll admit, my reasoning for starting were 100% selfish, and that's okay. I wanted to get some time away from the kids and I wanted to play with animals. All of these desires are totally self serving. But yesterday, as I was walking dogs and seeing how happy they were, with their cute little puppy smiles and the way their tails wag, I realized that I'm helping them more then they're helping me and it made me feel really good.

You're smiling because he's smiling. :)

And who doesn't want to feel good?

So, if you're looking for something good and productive to do on the weekends, a good place to start is JustServe.org . There you can find projects in your area. Also, if you're interested in helping animals, look up your local animal shelter or humane society to see if they are in need of help (trust me, they are).

Well, thanks for reading and I hope you have a Magnificent Monday!

Potty Training & Advice

NOTE: I apologize to any of my readers who aren't parents or who just don't care about this kind of stuff. You can always check out The Writing Blog. :)

We have made a great big step in potty training this week. William is consistently pooping in the potty and hasn't had any accidents of any kind in almost a week. Trust me, a week is a long time in Potty Training Land.

When I started potty training (and I say the rest of this as someone who's still in the thick of it, this stuff ain't over by any means) I did a ton of research about when to know your child is ready and how to go about it and all that jazz. And the one thing I saw repeated over and over is to trust your instincts.

There are some other basics to getting started. Like:

A. Be sure your child can communicate well. There's a lot of explaining that needs to be done. Your child should be able to understand you and vise-versa.

B. Persistence  Once you start, don't give up. Take breaks if you need to, if you or your toddler is just too stressed out by the whole thing. But don't give up.

C. And as I said, trust your instincts. You know your child better than anyone else. You'll know when they're ready and you'll know what strategy will work best to help them learn.

The strategy we've used for Will has been pretty straight forward. In the beginning I had (still have) a potty seat in the living room and I'd make him sit on it ever half hour or so. Every 15 minutes kind of drove me crazy. We also spent a few days running around commando so he didn't have the security of going in his pants.

Once he went in the potty properly we celebrated and rewarded him with cookies. Will loves cookies. After a while he began to understand that going potty=cookies and began to go as often as possible.

Learning to poop took a little longer. We began using a chart to mark when he went potty and when he had accidents. I think that was more for me than him, but he likes getting stars. And then I began not letting him do anything in the morning until he pooped in the potty. Again he went pantless. Will loves his TV time in the morning and was willing to do whatever it took to get his TV.

It did not take long. Within a day he got the idea and being rewarded with TWO cookies after pooping is the best!

So now, my next step is to get the potty seat from the living room to the bathroom. Will's going to miss being able to watch shows and potty at the same time, but that's what books are for!

In other kid news, Jacob now has two teeth and is this close to walking on his own. I'm kind of freaking out about having two little ones walking around. Things were easier when Jacob couldn't move much.

And that's what my life has been consumed with lately.

Thanks for reading! Happy Thursday!