It has been a crazy few weeks here in the Cullo household. In addition to the usual craziness of the holiday season we decieded to throw a game party. I had a great time but will never do that again because the holidays are crazy enough! What happened is that we normally have a Dessert party a few days after Christmas so that we can bring together our left over desserts from the holidays and get rid of it. But this year the party wasn’t planned until after New Years and it just didn’t make sense to keep the Dessert Party theme so we changed it to a Game Party.

Holy crap, Walgreens is coming to Anatolia!!! We have all been so pissed off about Safeway and Raley’s not putting on their Big Girl Panties and building out here we forgot about Walgreens. They have had a sign up for as long as Safeway and Raley’s and then BOOM out of the blue on Monday they started digging up the land and put a sign that said ‘ Walgreens ‘. It was like a gift…we can’t wait!

Over the past few weeks I have been dealing with our latest Lily issue and that is of her being scared to use public restrooms. Ok, many people have germ fears, but Lily’s is a noise fear and not just the noise but not knowing when the noise is going to happen. She also is afraid of the hand dryers and those and automatic potties flushing at the same time is a nightmare for her. I can totally identify with her fear about not knowing when a noise is going to happen. We have all had time to adjust to going potty in public restrooms, but my little girl has only had a little while to figure this thing out.

Anyway, since she is afraid of the noise (and she has said so) I thought we could try using ear plugs in the potty. Then she suggested we use Papa’s ear phones that she used during the Blue Angel’s show. (I have a great picture of her with them on, just need to get it off my phone). So that was step one. When I use the public potties she wears Papa’s headphones. However, she still will not sit on the potties. She used to do it all the time, BUT when that one crazy automatic potty flushed while she was on it, she just doesn’t trust any potty. I have tried to use her potty seat adapters but she still wont do it. Then I started to think that it might not be just the automatic potty but also that she doesnt’ feel comfortable on the potty. I have to hold her and her feet dangle, I think that she is just uncomfy.

So, I did what I really didn’t want to do…I am taking her fricken pink potty in the car. I don’t think that this will last for a long time but it is my way of letting her know that I am there for her, I am addressing her concerns….it is either that or we visit the public restrooms and she screams at me “Don’t touch me, help” as I am trying to get her on the potty….and yes that happened in the Costco restroom two weeks ago.

Here is my setup…just incase you need to have your little one use their little potty in the car.

• I have a giant Costco reusable bag that I put the potty in and her Kandoo wipes. It is big enough to ‘hide’ the potty and move it from the back of the van to the backseat without anyone (who doesn’ thave kids) see me and look at me funny for moving a pink potty around.
• I use a diaper (or pullup) fully opened inside the potty bowl with a paper towel under neath incase of spillage.
• Lily does her business and I wrap it up in the diaper and off we go. You can dispose of the diaper and there is no mess to clean up.
• I use hand sanitizer when we are all done.

Michel & Daria

Dawn & Louis

Julia & Lily at Grandma’s

I tried to take a lot of pictures but with Lily it was really difficult. There is so much to have to pay attention to when doing photography that it isn’t easy for me to do that and pay attention to a child. Lily is just not the kind of child to go to a new place and be happy about it, it is called ‘slow to warm’.

She didn’t want to get her dress on in the morning, she wanted to wear some ratty old blue dress. Then we had to get her in the car and that was alittle nightmare in itself. She cried the entire way there and she refused to let me brush her hair, much less put a pretty clip in her hair. Louis was an Usher at the wedding so Lily hung out with me in the back of the church with Aunties and Cousins. Lily was just a mess, she refused to take any pictures with Daria or her cousins. She wouldn’t let the Photographer take her picture and screamed when he came near her. We tried to have Uncle George take our picture as a family and she just freaked out, which sucks because I really liked my dress. She wouldn’t even let me take a picture. It was so difficult as a parent to see your child acting in that manner.

I was able to take a few pictures at the wedding but I need more practice. When this semester is over I can devote more time to photography. It is what I really want to do, it makes me happy and I am in my own little world when I am behind the camera and well..I am in control.

The first time I used an automatic flushing toilet was in Disneyland many years ago and I thought they were the greatest thing ever just really cool. Now, fast forward to when I am happy to have a potty trained little girl….automatic flushing toilets are my enemy.

She was doing great on the potty in public places but then we ran into an automatic flushing toilet. She literally jumped off the potty and clung to me as it flused while she was doing her business and her face was white as a ghost. Since then every time we go to a public restroom she asks me “is it a automatic toilet?”. I reply “yes” and whip out my post it note to cover the sensor. I show her that it wont flush with the post it note on it, but she still doesn’t belive me and refuses to go potty. It is not only the flushing that happens while she is on the potty but how loud they can be. The worst is when there are hand dryers in the bathroom and automatic flushing toilets.

We were at the Folsom Outlets last week and it was uber crowded. There were people flushing and using the hand dryers like crazy (the ones there are soooo loud too). I thought that Lily’s head was going to pop off. She was covering her ears with her hands and of course refused to go potty.

I’ve search on the internet for a solution and have yet to come up with one. I am sure that she will grow out of it one day. Here is a blog I found with some other automatic toilet fear stories

Ahh…just another glitch in the world of raising Lily.

Oh little Kenny V is 1, my how the time flys. He is walking now and so darn cute. He is so much fun and such an easy guy. He ate a little bit of cake, his cousins helped him blow out the candles.

I am a little sad today. We had to take Lily out of Preschool for a bit, it was just too expensive for us to do. My income from working at home just wasn’t enough to cover her Preschool and the balance of our house payment. I hate to say that, but it is true.

I feel kind of stupid for finding a place that I love and Lily loves and then having to pull her out. At Lou’s work he can participate in a dependant care reimbursment program, so we will sign up for that when the open enrollment comes around again. This will help us a bit when the time comes to put her back it, which we are shooting for March 09, she will be 3 1/2 and so that time just seemed right. She had the most wonderful teacher and the staff was great. Really going to miss them.

However, each day we got ready for Preschool Lily had some hesitation and maybe she really wasn’t fully ready for this so maybe it is ok…or I am just saying that to make myself feel better. She said that she is happy to ‘take a break’ from Preschool so that makes me feel better that we made the right decision. Also, she has just been a nightmare the past few weekends. I think maybe it has to do with knowing that a Preschool day (Monday) was coming up. You know when you don’t want to do something but you know you have to do it…don’t you get grouchy too. This will give us some time to hang out with our MeetUp group and some neighborhood friends.

Now that Daddy is able to give Lily a bath and put her down for the night I can work at night instead of during the day when she was in Preschool. Also, I will be taking just 1 more class (hopefully only one if I don’t have to repeat Algebra!) next semester and I can take Lily with me, there is a day care that she can go in while I am in school My class would only be for an hour, M-Th so that would work out and the cost is pretty low.

Now that the summer semester is over and I have my PE and Math (hopefully) requirement out of the way I only have one more class to complete and I will have the stinkin’ AA degree under my belt. Of course my plan is to get mey BA from Sac State so I will be taking more classes but let’s not think about that now!

Daria’s Bridal shower was today and it was so much fun. Judy hosted the shower at her beautiful home and served a yummie lunch. I think that one of the best gifts was a Coach key fob given to her from Joshua’s Mom and Krista, it was the letter “Y”. Her new last name will be Young. Such a great idea
She got some great things for their kitchen too. Her friend Kate moved out town but came to the shower as a surprise. Lily and Julia did ok, they ran around chasing Buddy and played with the Boyko cousins and in the backyard. Lily fell off of the swing, but she was ok, just a little dirty. She was pretty tired about 3 hours into the shower so we left and headed home.

I curled her hair the morning of the show. She wore princess stick on earrings and princess barretts in her hair and a Belle necklace. The night before we painted our nails purple.

This is Lily waving, she waved at every princess who came out. She did get very excited when she saw Belle, Ariel and Cinderella. Mickey and Minnie also made an appearance and a few minutes after they left she asked Daddy – When are Mickey & Minnie coming back?

Our tickets were in the second row so we had a good view but she sat on Daddy’s lap the entire time. I would have gotten front row tickets but those were $30 more than our seats. We were fine where we were. My mom’s birthday was on the 12th so we bought her a ticket to go with us. She loves Disney and she loves ice skating so it was a no brainer! She loved watching Lily get excited when the princess did their thing.

We got some popcorn…10 freakin dollars at intermission. She was nice enough to share with us.

Be sure to check out Lily’s Blog too and you can see a video of her getting a phone call from Cinderella. Lily’s Blog

We’ve tried to take a walk around our neighborhood with Lily in her baby carrier thingy but as you can see in this photo she doesn’t like it.

We went to the newest fast food restaurant in Roseville. It is called Chick-fil-A and is all about the chicken. We had our first taste while in Denver and really liked it. The line today was huge but it only took us less than 15 minutes to get through the drive in.

We are also awaiting the opening of Kinders BBQ in Roseville. We were first introduced to Kinders by Claudia while we lived in Pleasant Hill. Kinders BBQ is the offical BBQ of the Oakland Raiders so you know it must be good.

Just down the street on Antelope is a new Walmart SuperCenter and is due to open by December. It is huge, about the size of five football fields and it awesome. We can’t wait for it to open because then we can do our grocery shopping and regular shopping all under one roof. At one time I used to make fun of shopping at Walmart but I gave it a try and found that their prices are cheaper than Target.