Last weekend we drove down to Green Bay to stay at the Tundra Lodge. And, of course, go to the water park. We went last year over C's birthday and he had a great time, but IJ didn't get to enjoy it as much as that was the day that he hurt his arm. So I was just as excited for him to be able to have fun this time. The whole drive down all C talked about (when he wasn't paying attention to the movie on the dvd player) was going to the water park, where's the water park, are we at the water park yet? And IJ would enthusiastically shout "water part!". So when we finally got to the "water part", they were pretty thrilled. We went up to our room and the boys climbed all over everything, with C shouting how the water park had this, and the water park had that. He found the bathroom and exclaimed "Wow! The water park even has a potty!", and then promptly dropped his pants and peed in it. :)
The other night C, IJ, and I planted some strawberry seeds in a pot. The boys decided that these seeds needed some music to get them growing faster (a la an episode of Jack's Big Music Show).
Here's C on guitar and IJ on drums, singing "Grow, Strawberries!"
Overheard earlier tonight:
IJ: "I'm Bob bob 'Quare Pants!" (Spongebob Squarepants)
C (with some disdain): "You're not even yellow with holes. Or square."
In C's eyes, IJ will never live up to Spongebob. :)
Tuesday was Sasha's first birthday. She is no longer a puppy, but a DOG. She doesn't seem to notice, though, since she's still acting like a crazy puppy. She's loopy. I can't even count the number of times in a day I say "Sasha, no!" or "Sasha, go on!" or "Sasha! Don't poop in the neighbor's yard!".
In a year, she's gone from this:
To this:
From getting into "trouble" like this (such a cute little muddy puppy she was):
To being this troublemaker (that's a dog toy stolen from the neighbor's yard in her mouth):
Yes, in a year Sasha has gone from this cute little puppy lump that was too scared to climb the stairs so I had to carry her, that would cuddle up and sleep in my lap and give cute little kisses, to a crazy dog that chews up my underwear and socks (and no one else's), who constantly tries to get to the neighbor's yard to poop, and just drives me relatively insane with how obnoxious she can be.
But I guess she's still cute. She sure can smile:
***
The past few days have been really good in potty training land. IJ has been relatively trained for a while now, ever since the day when he was a little over a year old that he asked to go potty after seeing C do it so many times. I put him up on the big potty not expecting much, but as soon as he was on there he pooped! He's used the big potty since then, cause I wasn't going to mess with one of those little potties if he understood what the big one was for. Since then I have gotten him mostly poop trained, but he was still doing most of his peeing in his training pants. I've been putting off putting IJ in underwear for a while, since that's what worked for C. But the puddles everywhere! But the past few days we've gone for it, and he's been wearing underwear for most of the day, and I've been giving him a few M&M's every time he goes in the potty. We've had a couple days where he's kept one pair of underwear dry the entire day! I can't believe how well it's been going already. The next step we have to work on is IJ recognizing that he has to pee on his own instead of me asking him around the time I know he should have to pee. Right now it goes about like this:
"IJ, do you have to go potty?"
IJ: "Nooooo."
"You're sure you don't have to go potty?"
IJ: "Nooooo."
"Okay, but remember, if you go potty like a big boy and keep your underwear dry, you get M&M's."
IJ thinks about this for a minute, and then "Mommy, I have to go potty and get M&M's!"
The only bad thing about the M&M thing is that C thinks that he should get some every time he goes potty too. So I'll probably have to wean off the M&M's soon and find some other potty reward. I saw a Dora potty chart with stickers on the Nick Jr. website that I'll probably print out. IJ likes stickers, so maybe that will work. I'm hoping IJ gets the hang of it faster than C did. C had the habit then, and still does now, of waiting until the very last moment to go potty. Pee had to be coming out of him before he would go, so a lot of the time he wouldn't make it. He's better now, but he'll still get the occasional wet spot in his underwear from waiting too long. I hope that IJ realizes that he can go potty before the pee is coming out. :)
Here's hoping he's totally trained by, like, next week. That would be awesome. :) At least I'd like him totally trained before his sister is born. It will be nice to only have one kid in diapers this time. :)
Today I'm going to share some pictures of my belly in all its 20 1/2 week pregnant glory (I took these a few days ago) because I can. Well, also because we never really took any pictures of my belly when I was pregnant with the boys. So I figure if this is the last time I'm going to be pregnant, I'd better document it. :)
I had my ultrasound this past Wednesday, and after I left to pee (thank you, ultrasound technician :), the baby decided to cooperate and display what was between its legs. Get ready for it...
C's handprint turkey
IJ's handprint turkey
My little Indian
On Sunday the 12th, C's preschool class was invited to sing at the church service (his school is in the church). This was the first time I'd been to church in a long while, and really the first time I'd been to a real full church service. When I was a kid I lived in a much smaller town with a very small church that only had folding chairs and was very informal. So this was a little different. Not bad, since I do believe in God and all that; I just felt a little out of place in such a formal church setting after having not been in church on a Sunday in years. I think IJ was a little intimidated too. We sat down in the pew, and he looked all around with huge eyes. Then he started making sad faces and insisted that I put my arm around him. He got used to it though and really calmed down after he discovered the pencil and the little cards that you fill out. :)
C was playing in his classroom with the other kids until it was time for them to come out and sing. When the time came, C's teaher came walking down the aisle with all the little preschoolers in a line behind her. Except for C. He was sort of in line, but he was lagging behind, taking his own sweet time. He had his hands around the straps of his overalls, and was just looking all around as he slowly walked up to the front. He eventually made it up there. :)
C's class sang three songs, and I tried to get some video of all of them. I had a little hole where I could see C perfectly (I ended up having to sit in the middle of everybody), and I would have had good video of all three songs if the lady sitting in front of me hadn't of been whipping her head around every two seconds. Back and forth, back and forth. It was so annoying! (Is it bad to say I was annoyed with somebody in church? :) So here's the video where you can see C the best, with minimal head whipping. They're singing "If You're Happy and You Know It", and C is the one in the tan overalls and the green shirt.
After C was done singing, he came to sit with IJ and I, and the boys kept themselves busy filling out those cards. We almost made it through the whole service, until IJ started stinking up the place and announced that he had to go potty. Which was good timing since they had just started passing around the collection plate and I didn't have any cash with me. By the time we got done in the bathroom, people were filing out, so I think we did a pretty good job. :)
Last Thursday I made the third trip in a week to a certain medical center, but this time it wasn't for me. Wednesday night C started complaining of a sore throat, which wouldn't have been a huge deal if nana hadn't contracted strep a few days prior. So C missed school Thursday so we could head off to the medical center, again, since they have a walk-in clinic. Now normally I would take the boys to their pediatrician, and I called the office first thing Thursday morning. But they didn't have any openings until Monday. Monday! Freaking hell, the whole town must be sick. Obviously if C had strep I couldn't wait until Monday, so off to the medical center we went...
All of the medical center offices I was in Monday and Tuesday had toys in the waiting room. I knew it would be a long wait to be seen in the walk-in clinic, but I figured that office would also have toys, so I didn't bring anything with me. I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this: not a single toy in sight in that waiting room. And the boys were not in any mood to sit nicely in a chair. They wanted to run around and play. They traded chairs every two seconds. They tickled each other. Then they tried biting each other's fingers on purpose. Finally a lady pointed out to me that there was a very small box of kids books behind a chair in a corner. The books kept them occupied, although they seemed to think they needed a new book every two seconds. And for some reason, IJ seemed to think that the guy sitting next to the box was the Keeper of the Books. The guy didn't seem to mind, even though he was reading his own book, and played along. So when IJ was done with a book, he would hand it to the guy, then the guy would rifle through the box and give him a new one. It was pretty cute, and I'm glad the guy was nice about it.
Forever and a day later, we were finally called in. The verdict: no strep throat. But the boys have been sick with colds for a while (seems like ever since C started preschool), so the doctor diagnosed sinusitis. So C and IJ are both on antibiotics (which will also take care of any strep germs that maybe weren't presenting themselves), so now hopefully they'll finally kick their stuffy noses. Cause the snot has been flying here.
On Friday we got our first significant snowfall, a couple of inches that have since melted. I think that usually by this time we should have a lot more snow, but that doesn't bother me any. I don't really enjoy the snow and cold. Particularly the cold. I was born in Arizona, in the nice hot desert. My father was in the Air Force and they closed the base where we lived, and he actually picked to be sent to the base up here when I was in first grade (the base here eventually closed and my father took early retirement). So it's my father's fault that I live in the land of snow and cold. But there are a lot of good things about living in the U.P. that cancel out the cold part, so Yoopers we will stay. :)
C is a different story, though. He has been asking me for weeks when it would snow and when winter would come. I do not know how I produced this snow loving child. He obviously gets that from his daddy. :) So when he looked out the window Friday morning he was thrilled. "We can make snowmen and snowballs and have a snowball fight and build an igloo!" I hated telling him that he couldn't go out and play in it yet, first of all since he was still sick, and second of all since I haven't been able to get out shopping and get him new boots, snowpants, and gloves (IJ is all set with hand-me-downs). So R brought both boys a snowball before he left for work, and told them to throw it at me. Which of course they did since they listen to everything daddy tells them. :) Then of course I took them downstairs to attack nana and get her all wet. Hehe, that was fun.
First off, can I say how much I love that pregnancy ticker up there? It's not just cutesy-cutesy, it's informative with a touch of humor. He/She is peeing in me! Hehe! :D
Anyways, a lot has gone on around here the past week that I need to get caught up on. I think I've seen enough of a certain medical center to last me for a while, although my visits were for mostly good reasons.
Last Monday I had my first OB appointment, well what should have been the first one if I didn't have all that hospital business. And you know the first one is always the best kind, the feet-in-the-stirrups kind. Yippee. Buuuut, through feet-in-the-stirrups, I got the first good pictures of the baby. And oh boy, was that kid excited! A flip here, a wiggle there. He/She was jumping around all over, which was very reassuring for me. (Okay, I've really gotta come up with some kind of nickname for this kid until we pick a name.)
