Thursday, July 30, 2009

I know what I want!

This is The Girl and her tag line, "I know what I want!" She is very demanding little girl when she wants something. When I sit on the floor to play with her she must sit one of two places either between my legs and if there isn't room she will move them to her liking, or she will sit with my arms if I am laying on the floor. The other day I was laying on the floor and she was sitting between my arms, she got up and got her sippy cup brought it to me. She put in right next to my face, pulled on my hair to lift my head and then proceeded to point at her chest. "Yes sweetie, I will get you more juice." She certainly knows what she wants and knows how to get it.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

One Month Until School

I know I was keeping track of home times I could be asked by son if it was school time yet, I simply lost count. At least now it is less than a month away and he seems pretty anxious. We have been doing what we can to keep him in the learning mode, for example, we started a year or two ago with the Pigeon books by Mo Willems and have since found his Elephant and Piggie books which he loves and reads all on his own. We even bought for a whole dollar Math Bingo at Target, he loves it and I think he is starting to understand some of the concept of math as most of it is counting on our fingers and then adding more fingers, it is just hard when three of us play and the answer is 81 as there just are not enough fingers to count. So far the potty process is going well, slow but well. He really wants to inducted us into geekdom and get our model train. In all honesty I am excited about the train because as a kid my parents always told me mine was under my bed... there never was a train. It is also a curse now because all we do is train stuff it seems, maybe we will even get monogrammed shirts with the name of our railroad and those cool engineer or conductor hats.

The Girl is doing great, she has her 15 month appointment next week, should be a fun one. She is walking all over, chasing her brother, and loves giving donks to her Daddy. She is developing quite the personality as she is a champion food tosser and I believe has the stinkiest diapers known to man. We have bought a new diaper pail and have even tried using those Oder Blocker bags and sometimes it is no match for some of her diapers. At least it is one of them using diapers now so I shouldn't complain. Teeth are coming in at an alarming rate and she made her first trip to the jeweler to help me pick out Mommy's something special for getting the Boy to use the Potty for everything. She thought the shiny things were awesome and I am sure that now I have upped the ante on what presents she will want for her 2nd birthday next year. I will try to post a picture later of the something nice as I am sure some of you are wondering what you get for making someone poop in the potty.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Follow-up to Splash Down

Well the boy went a few days with no activity on the potty. He tried once without a fight but no luck. Then that evening while my wife and I were not at home my mom was watching the kids, he did it again on the potty. So with any luck we are well on our way. Now is the fun part for my wife as I told her if the calendar idea works I would get her something nice, now I just have to figure out something nice. This will take some thinking as this is an odd situation to buy for a gift for, the boy of course got some toys and a model train is in the vary near future (Welcome to our Geekdom!) if keeps up the good work.

Monday, July 20, 2009

"Houston, we have splash down!"

Best day ever! The Boy after many different tries and many different methods finally did what I thought may never happen... in his words, "I put stink in the potty!!" Granted it was 10 o'clock at night, but it was a celebration in our house as he did it with no fight, no crying (well maybe some tears of joy from all of us), no trying to hold on to it anymore. We are all very proud of him.

As many of you may know we have tried many methods to get this to happen, but my wife gets all the credit here. She pulled out his Highlights calendar and told him to pick a day for no more diapers. He picked July 19th. Every day we marked off on the calendar and celebrated the fact that July 19th was "Potty Day, No more Diapers!!" There was some very hip dancing to go along with this exclamation each day. We got to the 19th and celebrated that it was Potty Day and there were no more diapers, he never asked for one but didn't sleep real well that night. Then today he seemed as if he needed to go and it was just a waiting game to see if he was going to try or if he was going to ask for a diaper. All day he was fine, then came bedtime and he went pee in the potty and to bed. He got up once and had an accident when he went to his spot in his room he would go when he wore a diaper and had to make stink. He was upset by this but we reassured him and he went back to bed. He got up again and went pee again, this time making it to the potty. Then he got up a third time in a bit of distress and said "The stink is coming out." We rushed to the potty, sat down and he tried. My wife read him a book, then he wanted alone time and soon he pushed it out and into the potty. We were all excited, he was so happy he had tears in his eyes. I can't tell you how proud I am, or how happy I am. Even though there are many days that would be the best days ever (marriage, births, etc.), this for today is it, the best day ever!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Go from Good to Not as Good

The Boy has been a pretty good boy all week, until this morning. He went from being a good helper, a good listener, and being nice to just the opposite, not listening, not being careful around The Girl, just doing everything and anything that will drive me nuts. Right when I think he is turning a corner he turns back and goes the other direction. I realize he is 4 and this is to be expected but it doesn't make it any less frustrating. Of course the kids were working together today on driving me nuts, as the Girl was proceeding to have small tantrums about who knows what, maybe it is time to take her shoe shopping. It is just one of those days today. Hopefully a good nap and everyone will be calm and happy again.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Back from Vacation

The family took a vacation last week and had a good time. We stayed in a lodge that had two suites, we were in the lower one and above us was the Stompersons. The unique thing about this was they seemed to not sit at all as I believe they all were in perpetual motion whenever we were in the suite. In addition, they not only walked vary loud they constantly dropped things that were louder than most fireworks. It certainly makes it tough to get your kids to bed with all the noise. Monday we went to the beach even though it was bit windy but the beach cabana that we got from One Step Ahead was awesome, big enough to fit all of us and could close the windy side and made it very nice near the cabana. Tuesday and Wednesday it was cold and off and on rainy so we tried to do some fun things around town and n earby towns, we climed a sand dune that overlooked the lake, we went to a farmers market and saw a big steam engine that the Boy enjoyed very much, did some shopping and even ventured to a mall. I know a mall is not the idea of vacation but when you have two kids and not many inside things to do sometimes you need to get out of the suite. Thursday it was cool again and cloudy but we went back to the beach, we endured and the sun actually came out which was nice and made all of us happy. We came home Friday and the kids were happy to be in there beds. All in all it was good and here are a few pictures: