What Happens at Gigi’s House Hopefully Comes Home?

About a month and a half ago, before the virus hit hard here in Connecticut, I decided to travel to Texas to visit my parents.  My husband had military duty in Virginia (a yearly occurrence not due to the virus) and two weeks alone with both boys seemed like a long time so I decided it would be fun to travel.  The virus hadn’t really made much of an appearance here in the US yet and our pediatrician encouraged me not to cancel my plans (I did ask them if traveling was a bad idea!).   

Unfortunately, only a week into my trip, the situation with the virus quickly spiraled out of control.  As a result, my two week trip inadvertently became seven…  

While having our family separated (my husband made it back to CT as originally scheduled) was less than ideal, being in Texas for so long wasn’t all bad.  The weather was beautiful and we spent many afternoons enjoying “puerto backyarda” in my parents’ backyard and taking walks since everything else was closed and even better, my mom “Gigi” convinced the kids into things that they never would have done at home!  Here are just a few examples.  I can only hope that now that we are back home again that these new habits stick!! Fingers crossed.

New Strides in Potty Training

If you follow my posts regularly you know that my older son has been potty trained for about 2 years… day trained that is.  We have not mastered night training AT ALL.  Before we went on our trip to TX my son was peeing his pullup EVERY night.  I was annoyed and frustrated but I was also told that boys take a longer time to figure out night training so I was trying not to push it – not to mention that I honestly couldn’t deal with it since having my second son.  Believe it or not though, during the entire 7 weeks that we were in TX, my son only had 4 accidents.  I couldn’t believe it. My toddler was suddenly able to get up in the middle of the night and wake me up for help if he needed to use the potty and to use the potty first thing in the morning when he woke up.  

More Sleep

Not only did my mom have my son almost entirely potty trained, she also had him sleeping later!  Somehow she was able to allow him to stay up later, nap every other day, and still sleep about an hour later every morning.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around how she managed this.  To top it off, the baby was waking up only once or twice a night, my husband wasn’t there snoring, and my mom grabbed my toddler in the morning to give me an extra hour in bed so to say I was getting more sleep is putting it lightly.  Maybe it was the way the sun comes up a little later in Texas or maybe it was the novelty of being at Gigi’s house but either way this new sleep pattern for both boys was wonderful.  If this continues back home I will be one very happy mama.

Adventurous Eating

Before my trip, my toddler’s diet was also an issue.  When he was younger he ate all sorts of things but as of last year, the only meat he would eat consisted of chicken fingers and hot dogs.  He hated “ground beef” with a fiery passion.  One day while we were grocery shopping he even went so far as to have a complete meltdown because I was buying a package of ground beef.  He started shrieking “No! Don’t buy ground beef. I HATE ground beef!” and tried to throw it out of the cart.  To say that I was horribly embarrassed would be an understatement.  

The strange thing is though, since being at my parents’ house, my toddler suddenly eats everything and ANYTHING!  Here is a list of just some of the things that he tried and proclaimed that he “LOVED” while visiting my parents: flautas (aka taquitos), guacamole, salsa, awesome sauce (similar to Tabasco but spicier if you can believe it), almonds, jalapeno popcorn, chicken sandwiches (yes he actually REQUESTED these), grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, mayo, mustard, tuna, hamburgers (aka ground beef!!!), lettuce (which he calls leaves), salad dressing, granola cereal, and wait for it…. pheasant tacos! Yup you read that right!  He actually ate and enjoyed tacos that my dad made from pheasant that he had personally hunted.  I couldn’t help but wonder who this kid was who was suddenly eating all of this stuff!  When we arrived back home he couldn’t wait to tell my husband that he wants to go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.  Crazy!  I can’t wait to see if this lasts.  I am hoping it does because having to give iron supplements and multivitamins is a pain in the butt and I’d much rather just make him real food!  My husband is also excited that our son is trying new things because it means that he will get to have a lot more food with “flavor.”  I’m boring and super picky so I eat a lot of simple foods and I don’t often make meals with more complex flavors for only one person to eat.

We have been back home in Connecticut now for a couple of weeks and it’s been a bit of rocky transition.  I’m hoping that the struggles to maintain the habits that my mom so lovingly cultivated will pay off and that the regressions that we are seeing are merely due to change and therefore temporary.  Fingers crossed because I’m not ready for the mommy honeymoon to be over.  Let’s hope that what happens at Gigi’s house doesn’t stay there.

Has anything new happened with your routines since the virus has hit?  What’s working?  What’s not?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

A day at Gigi’s house…