Five Favorites (With a Really Crappy Giveaway!)

Joining Hallie again. If I was allowed to have a sixth favorite, it would be the song she has in her number one spot. So beautiful. I've been listening to it on repeat all week. But I'm not allowed to have six favorites, so I'll just get started with my five below.

-1-

This post by Jenny. Every post by Jenny actually, but especially that one. She has such a knack for writing about living out your pro-life values in an anti-life world. And a knack for writing in general.

-2-

The person who can solve this current parenting dilemma for me. YOU will be my favorite! How do I get Hannah to stop biting her nails and chewing on her fingers? How? I need to know!

"Smile Hannah." "No. I want to be siwwy. Yite dis."

-3-

Sweet Potato Fries from a bag. I love all sweet potato fries, but the kind that I don't have to cut up and stand at the stove frying are the best. It goes against my attitude of "don't spend money on something you can make yourself" and I don't care one bit because they are fast and delicious and oh my goodness I just need food in my body right this second! And when you are making dinner and realize you forgot to make a side....sweet potato fries. When you've run out of options for a quick lunch......sweet potato fries. When the baby wants your food and wont stop grabbing it out of your hands.....broken up sweet potato fries to the rescue.

I buy the giant bag at Costco but I've seen them at Walmart too.

-4-

This homemade recipe for remoulade. Having been dairy free for the better part of three years now, I can tell you that the desire to dip stuff into something creamy does not go away. I just want ranch!!! Or cream cheese!!! Or queso!! So when I remembered that remoulade is mayonnaise based, I whipped up a batch and starting dipping. Mostly sweet potato fries.

I had never heard of remoulade until we moved to Mississippi. On my first day of training at my new job I went out to lunch with a bunch of beautiful, young, Southern gals with thick accents. They looked at me like I was a freak show when I started eating my food before every.single.person had their food in front of them too. Because apparently that's a thing in the South and it's most certainly not a thing in the North. Not when there are more than a dozen people at the table. And food is being brought out one dish at a time. And we only have a thirty minute lunch break.  But I noted their stares and agape mouths and put my fork down and sat and watched my food get cold like everyone else. So later when I asked, "What's remoulade??"they had no trouble just writing me off as a rude Northern weirdo who didn't know her Cajun food.  I think I put my elbows on the table too. They, on the other hand, did not.

Unrelated picture of Paul. Also being "siwwy"

-5-

This book on potty training. Oh Crap Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki. I read it months ago and totally forgot that the author offered to do a giveaway for readers of this here blog. I pulled it back out this week because we are going to start night training Hannah now and I wanted to refresh myself with her tips. For us, her method worked like a charm. I appreciated the wealth of informaiton and the tips on common mistakes. I totally would have said, "it's ok!" every time Hannah had an accident when, really, it's not ok. That's why we're teaching you to use the potty! So instead I followed her advice of just stating the obvious ("You peed on the floor.") and reminding her what to do ("We pee in the potty now.")

I liked that she doesn't use food as a reinforcer and found that to be super successful for Hannah. It was a much more logical approach than the sticker charts and candy and it worked for us.

The most helpful was her guidelines for determining if your child is ready. I wish I had read it sooner because Hannah was definitely ready a few months before we finally started. And if we had read it earlier I would have had a potty trained toddler before the new baby arrived and wouldn't have been messing with potty training while caring for a five week old.

If you want to win it, enter below! And if you don't win, you should just buy it. It was actually a fun read and I read it cover to cover in one sitting and then went back to digest the important parts. Her language is pretty rough, but I kind of enjoyed it. She did use some curse words as a warning for those who may not like that. And God's name in vain a few times, which made me sad. Because there are so many better ways to say things without stooping to that level, ya know?

But overall, good book. Super helpful. Go win it! a Rafflecopter giveaway