RV Life: The New Playroom

Rain is a bummer when you're camping, even when you have an RV. When it's raining, this family of four lives, works, and homeschools in about 240 sq. ft. If the weather is nice, we have lots of outdoor space as our "living room." We just moved out of my parents house where we took over the guest bedrooms for 6 weeks during the holidays. Of course, our first day at the new campsite we get drizzle, followed by sunshine, followed by downpour after downpour and then drizzle. Welcome to Florida!

Luckily, with some input from me, the kids Great Grandma Hall got them a tent and some sleeping bags for Christmas. I was thankful for that little extra dry space today. After getting soaked coming out of the grocery store, I got home and had to put things away which is like putting a puzzle together in our limited cabinet space. Having two little people hopping around in the way does not help the process. They did help get the bags inside and then voluntarily disappeared into their new "playroom." Meanwhile, I was able to get organized and start supper in peace. Yay!

So, if your staying in an RV for any length of time with kids, a tent is still a valuable asset particularly on rainy days.

Related articles

• For Everything There is a Season (shannafern.com)

Potty Training Milestone

I have been procrastinating with potty training Elisabeth. It took so long for Jonah to get potty trained (18 months) that I decided to wait until she was really ready before making the big push. I keep changing the deadline, but at this point, I'm committed and mentally preparing her that when she turns three "no more diapers." Wishful thinking perhaps, but that's my current plan. Nevertheless, I occasionally ask her if she wants to go potty and get her to sit on it to no avail.

Well, the last two days she has had a bout of diarrhea which resulted in a diaper rash. So today, I thought I'd let her run around bottomless to let things air out so the rash would heal. Also, we have a book about going to the potty where the little boy put's his potty in a tent and uses it. So today I sat up the Dora tent in the playroom and put the potty inside it just like in the book. She loved it and sat there for quite a while.

Eventually she moved the potty just outside the tent so that she could sit and watch TV at the same time. While I was upstairs packing for our upcoming trip, I hear, "Mom! Mom! I did it! I did it!" I was somewhat skeptical as she has cried wolf before. Regardless, I ran downstairs to investigate and sure enough she had pee'd in the potty! So Jonah and I congratulated her and jumped up and down and gave her lots of praise and then I rewarded her with her favorite snack. She was so proud of herself - she was so cute. "Did I do good mom?" "Yes, Baby, you did great!"

A few hours later, she was bottomless once again and I hear her say, "Mom I made a big one." So her dad and I go in the playroom to look in the potty - Nothing! Then we see her pointing to the rug where we find a little poopy terd. Thankfully it was fairly solid and cleaned up easily. "I'm sorry mommy."  "It's okay; lets just try to get it in the potty next time."

So another episode in a mother's quest to clean up poop. For previous installments, check out these posts!

To end on a positive note, Dad reported that she used the potty two more times while I was out this evening. Yay Elisabeth!

Tenting Indoors

I got Jonah a Star Wars or rather Clone Wars playtent for Valentine's day. He loved it as did Elisabeth. They played with it in the living room for a couple of days. It wasn't long though before it ended up as an accessory on Jonah's bed. This didn't surprise me considering he would drive us crazy about attaching a sheet over his bed which kept falling down. So this has turned out to be a good thing for all of us. As you can see he feels right at home in it.