Ben: 18 months

Ben is 1 and a half already! 

Ben's newest words:
Blankie = "Geeky" :)
Where did it go? = "Go" with the palms of his hands facing up
Moo
Pig snorts
Water = "wawa"
ummmmm (when he's thinking)
please = "meeeee," in addition to the sign
help = "ow"
baby = "beebee"
mine
ni-night
No (sometimes it's a very adamant, shall I say...snotty?...tone)
out = "ow"
more = "mo"
cracker = "kaka"

He's shown a little bit of interest in potty training. For now, we occasionally ask him if he wants to sit on his frog potty. Sometimes he says no, but sometimes he says yes. He peed in it one time a couple of weeks ago. He hates getting his diaper changed, so I'm hoping he's willing to be potty trained early :) He definitely knows what the potty is for, so we'll see!

Ben loves going for walks and bike rides (he rides in the Burley). If we're going for a walk, he makes sure we don't forget Rocket! He likes going to the parks and going down slides and swinging and doing whatever Colin is doing.

He also loves to wrestle. If he's in the mood to roughhouse, he'll bring you into his room, point to the floor and say "down." At that time, you are to either lie on the floor, or sit on the floor and he'll push you over. Then he'll climb all over you and spit in your face and jump on you. Good times.

Unfortunately, he's battling an ear infection again. Summer is supposed to be sick-free! He's had quite a few ear infections (about 6) in the last year, so if he gets another I'll probably make an appointment with an ENT to discuss our options. I'm hoping to avoid tubes, although I hear they're wonderful.

His current favorite books are The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Ten Little Ladybugs, and a touch-and-feel animal book. He still nurses before bed, but only for a few minutes. Then we read books, and Kevin reads books. Truthfully, he can be kind of a challenge when he nurses. He hits me, pokes me, sticks his finger in my mouth, frog kicks his legs against the arm of the chair, and talks to me instead of nurse, so his interest is waning. I still love the time with him, but many nights I've told him that I'm not going to give him milk anymore if he isn't nice to me. Ideally, I still want him to decide when he's done, so it'll be interesting to see when he'll quit. I can be gone at his bedtime and he'll go to sleep without me, and my body doesn't care either.

Knowing that Ben loves the water, hopefully we'll be able to go swimming a lot this summer and let him be a little fishy. He loves his baths, and even lays his head back and "floats" in the bathtub (with my hand under his head of course). He's so relaxed when he's floating, which I think is pretty cool.

And other updates

Aside from finishing the triathlon, here's what else has been happening:

Colin's in a big potty training regression phase. {insert sarcasm font} It's pretty awesome {end sarcasm font}. He has more wet pants than dry pants these days. He gets so busy he forgets to tell one of us. Or I ask him and he says no, and then 5 minutes later he pees his pants. It's so frustrating I want to scream and cry. But I don't. I just have to have scheduled potty breaks built in the day I guess.

We took one side of Colin's crib off. We did this for a few reasons.
1) I heard a story about a 2 year old who climbed out of his crib and started having seizures. He was admitted to the hospital and died a few days later.
2) I thought it would be easier for him to use the bathroom at night if one side was off, so he didn't feel like he was trapped and his only option was to wet the bed.
3) He wasn't sleeping well. I've learned that when he's being a stinker, it sometimes helps if you challenge him. Then the problem goes away.

Well, a week later after completely unsuccessful weekend naps, the side is back on. We did this for a few reasons.
1) He fell out of his bed at least once a night, which didn't seem like a big deal to him, but we'd have to go and put him back in bed.
2) He still had the same amount of accidents, if not more.
3) He's sleeping better now with the side on.
Thus, the experiment was a dud. Try again later.

One of my best high school guy friends, Troy, who lives 20 minutes away from us, had a baby on Saturday. Well, technically he didn't have a baby, his wife did. I got to see sweet little Lauren and I look forward to hopefully spending some time with them this summer. Troy is a teacher too so it shouldn't be too hard to find a time to meet up.

7 more student days until summer starts! On Thursday we're going to Como Zoo so it's not even a real school day!

6 weeks later, 100% potty trained!

I can officially call Colin potty trained now! Actually, he has been potty trained 100% at home for at least three weeks. He still has a minor poop-related issue at daycare to sort through, but the last few days there have gone really, really well. He is starting to get more comfortable about telling Sandy when he needs to go. I rarely ask him if he needs to go anymore either, because I know he'll tell me.

He has never had an accident in public, which makes outings easy. No diapers needed! There have been a few times when we've taking long-ish car rides and I've brought the potty with us, knowing a bathroom might not be available at a moment's notice. He said he had to go, so Kevin stopped, then I crawled into the back seat and plopped him on the potty in the back of the Explorer. He went, I dumped it out, and off we drove!

He wears the Gerber training pants to bed every night now. The extra padding (how little it may be), is for my assurance. He has only had two night time accidents: the first night, and once last week, which I think happened because he was coughing so hard. He usually wakes up at 4:00 or so to go potty, and then goes right back to sleep when he's back in his crib.

I am so happy and fortunate potty training worked out like it did. Those first four days were frustrating and exhausting. I annoyed myself with all of the constant asking and reminding I did. Since then, as we've been able to slowly back down from the reminding and checking, it has been a breeze. In fact, I have almost forgotten the first four days.

So now I can really, truly say I am looking forward to a diaper-free summer!

Spring Break Day 5

At 2:20 a.m., Kevin I awoke to Colin saying, "Mama potty." I wearily asked Kevin, "Was that potty or puppy?" (sometimes they sound the same). Kevin said he thought it was potty. We jumped out of bed and I asked Colin if he wanted his puppy. He said, "potty." Away we hurried to the potty, with Colin's teddy bear's head in a choke hold under his armpit. He went potty, we re-diapered him and we put him back to bed. As we climbed back in to our own bed, I said to Kevin, "That was interesting." Mystifying, amazing, all of that.

This morning we went to the pool to swim. Mr. and Mrs. L. said we could use one of their guest passes so we could get in for free. We took swimming lessons last summer, but he was so much more comfortable swimming this time. There weren't many people there aside from a few lap swimmers and a water aerobics class. He liked to pretend he was a fish, and he did a great job of kicking his legs. He really liked just being dragged around the pool and watching people and enjoying the water moving around him most.

Swimming wore him out because he slept for about 2 and a half hours, and then he woke up and slept on my lap for another half hour.

This afternoon we picked up our pottery that we painted on Saturday. Here's the plate I made for Colin to use on his birthdays. The cupcakes are his hand prints (minus the thumb):
And here's Colin's first pottery masterpiece:
Still not sure what I'm going to do with it. I'd like to display it somewhere, somehow.

After picking up the pottery, and Colin and I stopped at Once Upon a Child. I hadn't been in one, so I wanted to see what kind of bargains were there (nothing good enough to buy, although I did consider a pair of rain boots). Then we went to the fabric store. Colin was doing just fine there until he saw a cart and he wanted to push it. The store was not busy at all, so I let him push the cart. Then he ran into a shelf and knocked it down. In an effort to not wreak havoc on the entire store, I said he had to sit in the cart and I put him in it. Enter tantrum. I pushed the cart back to it's spot and we left. On our way out, I told the employees that it was our first store tantrum and there's nobody even there to see it. Disappointing.

This evening after supper we went for a walk. Colin directed us to the school's park, so he went down a few slides.

Two more weekend days and my awesome week will be over. Would it be pathetic if I started counting down to summer now? 11 more weeks (with some days off due to Memorial Day and Easter). Seems so long, but knowing I only have 11 more weeks to make a difference in my students' lives seems like a heavy burden to bear.

Spring Break Day 4

We started off the day with a wet bed. The undies were no match for him. Good thing it was 6:10 and he was ready to be awake anyway.

Kent Hrbek made an appearance at our grocery store to promote the upcoming Twins season, and was all about going. I grabbed a new baseball at the entrance to the store and we stood in line. Kent was parked by the steaks, and we were standing by the Caribou. The lady who came to stand before us had the gall to ask me, "Are you even old enough to remember the ('87 & '91) World Series?" I quickly came back with, "Yes I am!" (The NERVE right?) I wanted to tell her that I may have been young, but I remember Kent Hrbek's 1st base play and Kirby Puckett's home run like it was yesterday, but she started talking about how she and her husband went to Atlanta after the '91 series and the people there were making excuses for not winning. Whatevs, Lady. Luckily the line moved quickly, and Colin was Mr. Content checking out all the baked goods in the bakery along the way. Knowing that our neighbor, Mr. L., is a big baseball fan, I told him about Kent so we saw him there as well. Colin was more starstruck to see him there than Kent. Obviously. We got the baseball signed and came home.

We played outside a lot because it was the nicest day of the week. A lot of snow was melting, which makes me so happy. I love seeing the grass, even though it's pretty nasty.
Being St. Patrick's Day, our town has a parade. There are a lot of full-blooded Irish families here, so I guess it's a big deal. We're not Irish that we know of, but that doesn't stop us from taking part in the festivities! Colin and I walked to the parade. When we got there, it hadn't started yet, and he didn't really want to be there. But then he saw tractors and horses lined up at the beginning and that peeked his interest enough to stay. He loved to look down the road to see what was coming next and tell me about it.
And the candy! he was excited about that too.
Colin chose to wear diapers to bed, which made me much more at ease about night time (read Day 5 to see how that all panned out).

Spring Break Day 3

This morning Colin and I hit the store bright and early to buy some cookie ingredients. I gave Colin a quarter, and he decided he wanted to buy a banana with it, so that he did. He gave the cashier his banana and his quarter like a pro. Then we came home and played outside for awhile. We saw the neighbors again and chatted. We got a ride in Mr. L's golf cart, just a half a block away and back.

After lunch Colin took another decent nap while I baked chocolate chip cookies. It was Kevin's mom's birthday today so I made her a largish chocolate chip cookie. It was the perfect size to fill a paper plate. I practiced my decorating skillz and wrote happy birthday on it.
Once Colin was awake, we went to Kevin's parents' house to hang out with the birthday girl. Colin got to ride on the snowmobile. He loved that, no doubt about it! Every time Kevin's dad would make a circle around the yard and stop up by the house again, Colin would ask for more. He probably rode around for a half hour or so. The boy loves things he can ride on.

We got home around supper time, hung out, and then it was bed time. Colin has been on a night time bath strike (we can get him to take a bath in the mornings, which isn't always convenient!), so we moved on to getting his pajamas on. He was goofing around and not listening, so I started giving him choices as I undressed him (socks off first or shirt off first?). He was not having any of it, and was throwing a huge tantrum. Finally I got him to calm down and he was in a good mood again, but would not get his pajamas on. I don't know who or what possessed me to ask him if he'd rather wear undies or a diaper, but I did. And he chose undies. And then I couldn't take it back. He hasn't been waking up dry recently. Nevertheless, he went potty one more time, I prepped his bed (sheet saver on top, a flat changing pad under his sheet, and the pre-existing mattress cover), and bribed him because that's what good moms do. I told him if he kept his undies dry all night long, we could get him some Curious George pajamas that we saw at Target. Night time potty runs will be a lot easier if we have some 2-piece pajamas. So....here's hoping!!!!!!!!! The worst case scenario is I end up changing sheets and pajamas and putting on a diaper in the middle of the night, right? Good thing it's spring break and I can sleep in a little if I need to!

It's almost like hand-me-downs

I've found that since Colin no longer has a bulky diaper butt, the pants he's wearing right now are way too big for him. The butt is saggy and they drag on the ground. My mom said to go back into the clothes stash and see if a smaller size fits better (obviously--why didn't I think of that?). So I dug in the 12-18 month bin and it was a treasure trove of pants and shorts. We had a little try-on session tonight with the "new" clothes. Colin was digging it and picked out what he wanted to try on. I think a lot of it will fit him for at least a few more months, then the pants his wearing right now should fit him perfectly. No more saggy old man jeans!

It's like getting hand-me-downs from himself!

Potty Training Diaries: Days 14 & 15

Yesterday I got a call at work. My caller id said Sandy's name. Two scenarios were about to unfold: puking toddler (again), or potty-pooping toddler (fingers crossed). And the winner is....pooping toddler! Colin's not big on talking on the phone yet, but I did praise him and told him how proud I was of him. When I picked him up that afternoon, Sandy had more good news to share. He didn't have any "real" accidents, just two slightly damp pairs of undies from peeing and then holding it. He also was telling her "potty" when he had to go! :D

Today was great too! No real accidents. He didn't tell her he needed to go, but he still went when she made him go. After daycare, I was brave enough to venture out to the bank and the gas station before hitting the safety of home. We made it dry as a bone.

This evening, he told me "potty" twice.

We're getting there, people, we're getting there! So much so that now that we've cleared that last hurdle (pooping at daycare), I will be sure to blog about other happenings, and just do one final hurrah! post when we've sealed the potty training deal.

Now it's time to get serious about what the heck I do with his worn out bumgeniuses.

Potty Training Diaries: Days 5-13

Well, things in PT Land are going pretty well! Here's a synopsis of strengths and challenges:

Strengths

• Kid's got my teacher's bladder! At times, he doesn't go to the bathroom for 3 hours. Not that I'm encouraging it, it's just the way it is. We went to our chiropractor appointment last Thursday night (hour-long car ride one way), and to church and a quick trip to the store on Sunday and he stayed dry every time. He has also never gone to the bathroom in the car, so I have removed the towel protecting the car seat.
• He has woken up from every nap dry.
• His night time diapers used to be soaked in the morning, but now they're pretty dry, even a half hour after he wakes up.
• We rarely have accidents at home :)
  

Challenges

• Pooping at daycare. He hasn't done it once. In fact, he'll sit on the potty for five minutes, get his pants back on, go in the other room, and immediately poop. Once he gets over the pooping-at-daycare hump, we're golden. And Sandy says she always calls moms when her child goes poop on the potty for the first time. Every time my phone rings at work, I cross my fingers and skedaddle over to see whose name is on my caller id.
  
• Telling us he has to go. For the most part, we coerce him to the bathroom with treats and stickers. For the most part, he goes running in to the bathroom if you say "treat" or "sticker." If he doesn't have to go at all, he'll just say no and we don't push it. BUT...this afternoon he was home sick, and he told me "potty" 4 times! So maybe he's getting it.
• Colin has at least one accident every day at daycare (and it's usually just that poop accident).
  

What we're doing now:

• Still underwear all day, diapers only at night time
• Sticker chart: I made a 5x5 table in Word. I printed it off and taped it to the wall in the bathroom. Pee=1 sticker, poop=2 stickers. 5 stickers=dinosaur toy (thank goodness for Walmarts $1 "section." Although he's starting to care less about dinosaurs and more about filling his sticker chart. He filled one sticker chart today and we started a new one! He also has a separate chart at Sandy's house.
  
• Constantly asking him if he has to go, and every 2 hrs or so giving a good effort to make him sit and go. Coercing with Reeses Pieces and stickers is the key.
• Over the weekend, I got out a bumgenius and stuffed it really full and told him if he keeps peeing his pants, he'll have to wear diapers. He wasn't thrilled about that idea.
  

I guess I can look forward to a diaper-free summer! Here's hoping that he'll keep up the good work :)

Potty Training Diaries: Day 4 (at daycare)

In short, Colin had an *okay* PTing day.
He had 2 poop accidents this morning and 1 this evening. But he also peed on the potty throughout the day, so all was not lost.

Sandy is in it for the long (hopefully not too long!) haul, I think.

I'm sorry I'm talking about poop so much. I promise I won't give any more daily updates and blog about more interesting things aside from feces.

The Potty Training Diaries: Day 3

This morning I woke up to call that school was 2 hrs late. About 2.5 hrs later, I got another call saying it was canceled! Great opportunity to get potty training day 3 under our belt!

The 3 Day Potty Training Method says that if it hasn't clicked on Day 1 or 2, it will most likely click on Day 3. So I was so happy to have school canceled today.

Colin woke up at 6:00 with a wet diaper. We watched a little bit of Curious George and then changed into underwear. He had two accidents this morning--one poop that occurred, of course, when I was out of the room getting ready for work (before the cancel call). I guess I didn't learn anything yesterday. The second happened while Colin was playing with water in a bowl. I filled up a bucket with some fresh snow too. He scooped all of the snow out of the bucket and into the bowl, then put the bucket on his head and I took a picture. He was more than likely peeing as this picture was taken because I had JUST checked his underwear and they were dry.
He napped same as usual and woke up dry again! When he woke up from his nap, he sat on the potty but nothing happened.

So I waited...and waited...and waited for him to say he had to go. We went outside to play for a good half hour, and his underwear were still dry when we came in! I was thinking...great! He's learning how to hold it now, and any minute now he'll let me know he has to go. Well, he didn't let me know and had an accident. I kind of felt a little defeated at that point, but told myself that 5 accidents in 3 days isn't bad at all. And accidents are all part of the process, so it's no biggie.

Tomorrow we *should* have school, so Colin is off to Sandy's. Hopefully having someone else pestering him about going to the potty will help out a little. And maybe he'll realize I'm serious, because I'm not sending diapers tomorrow.

The Potty Training Diaries: Day 2

Once again, Colin woke up with a soggy wet diaper. He didn't want to sit on the potty AT ALL this morning, but he did anyway and didn't go.

The morning went smoothly. He even told Kevin he had to poop and then he went on the potty. Right after lunch, I asked him if he had to go potty and he said no, but a minute later, I caught him peeing by the TV. His face was all taken aback and he didn't know what to do.

He napped same as yesterday--underwear only and I used a sheet saver. He woke up dry again, and peed on the potty when he woke up.

This afternoon he only had one accident, where he slipped out of sight for a minute while I was talking to Kevin. He had a guilty face when I saw him, so I whisked him away to the bathroom and pulled down his underwear. A poop fell on the floor and I didn't know it, and I stepped in it. That was real fun. But the rest of the day was great!

So...2 days in and 2 "real" accidents. Both happened when he was out of sight. Note to self: Don't let him out of sight.

Despite it being President's Day tomorrow, we have school. I'm kind of hoping the snow/blizzard we're getting leads to a snow day so we can continue the training tomorrow. I'm nervous to send him to daycare tomorrow, even though Sandy is ready for him.

The Potty Training Diaries: Preface/Day 1

PREFACE: Colin went pee on the potty at daycare on Wednesday and Thursday. I decided to run with it and potty train cold turkey style this weekend.

DAY 1
Colin woke up this morning at 5:30 and snuggled in bed with us until 7:00 (glorious!). As soon as he woke up, we went straight to the bathroom and took his (soaking wet) diaper off. He sat on the potty but didn't go. I put some underwear on him and away we went for the day!

I had a hair cut appointment this morning and Kevin was gone all day, but Kevin's mom came over for the half hour I was gone. After I got back, Colin and I collected all of the cloth diapers and put them in a garbage bag and put the bag out in the garage. We said good bye to the "baby diapers."

All day long I kept asking him if he had to go potty. Most of the times he said no, but when he said yes, we went. I also told him to tell me if he had to go, and one time he said "potty," so we went and he peed (awesome).

There was only one accident this morning, which happened while I was making some blue box Macaroni and Cheese. I yelled "NO!" to him because he was about an inch away from touching the hot burner on the stove and then he started crying because I scared (the piss out of) him. Then he started peeing. As soon as I saw, I scooped him up, put him on the potty, and he went more on there. And after earning some M&Ms, he forgot about the whole thing.

While he was eating lunch, I asked him if he had to go potty, and he said yes, so we went to the bathroom. He peed, sat for awhile longer listening to snowmobiles and airplanes that were outside, and wouldn't you know it, he pooped!

For naptime, I put one of the sheet savers we used long ago to protect the sheets from spit up in his crib and made sure he was laying on it. Of course, we also have a mattress protector, but one more waterproof barrier won't hurt. I made sure he went potty one last time before he took a nap. He woke up after a half hour calling my name, so I went in there and asked if he had to go potty. He said yes, so I put him on the potty. He forced himself to go. Then I rocked him for a minute to get him sleepy again and put him back down. He slept for another hour and a half (I had to wake him up) and woke up dry!

The afternoon was good too. He even said "poop," so we went to the potty and sure enough, he pooped! Later in the evening, I asked him if he had to go (he said no) and to tell me if he needed to go. 30 seconds later, he said he had to go so we went.

For night time, we're going to continue using our overnight disposables. We just bought a new box a few weeks ago and we're just getting into a sleep-through-the-night routine again. After working hard all day to stay dry, Colin deserves the chance to just relax. Hopefully with a little bit of time he'll catch on and start staying dry at night too.

Day 1: A success! I'm not counting the accident he had since I scared him into peeing.

Ho Hum

That's how I'm feeling these days. The winter blahs.

Colin got his first "professional" hair cut a few weekends ago, as opposed to the at-home buzz cut we gave him the day before his birthday. He was sporting a no-business-all party, mop-headed mullet.
He hated it. We went to Kids' Hair on a Saturday morning. The place was swarming with kids, all crowded into a tiny "lobby" (aka carpet). He didn't get enough of a "warm-up" time to see what the place was all about, which resulted in this:
After stroking my hair for a little while, he calmed to this, still holding on to me:
And then to this:
I asked for a little boy hair cut.
I thought it would be longer in the back. Oh well...at least the mullet is gone.

We also tried sledding. Colin giggled on his first trip down, and the two subsequent trips were, apparently, less fun because after three times down the hill, he was done. I, however, could've gone down many, many more times.
We've been hot and cold about potty training, but now I think Colin might be ready to go at it with the help of my good friends M & M. On occasion I ask him if he wants to go sit on his Thomas potty and get a treat. He usually says yes and sits and actually makes himself pee every single time. Sitting = 1 m&m, pee = 2, poo = 3 (when we get there...) I was going to wait until spring break and go at potty training full speed ahead, but I think maybe we'll take a slower approach until then. Sandy is on board to help out as well! The sooner we're done with diapers the better! Our BumGeniuses are wearing out and I'm so sick of diaper rash (due to teething...).

Not much else is new, sadly. The kids at school are absolutely nutso. Even my good kids are a little wonky these days. Cabin fever, perhaps. Let the countdown to spring break begin :) 43 days to go...

Paci and Potty

We have officially gotten rid of the pacifier! ::insert happy dance here:: We followed the Bye-Bye-Binky method, and within 5 days, the pacifier was down to a 1/2 inch stub. Colin got very frustrated at it and kept signing "help" and kept trying to pull it out more. Then we got the scissors out and asked him if he wanted it cut off, and he said yes. Then there was nothing left except the plastic part. He got really mad then. And he didn't sleep well AT ALL for about 2 or 3 nights. He had grown accustomed to falling asleep without his nukie, but for those first few nights he kept waking up every hour or two wanting it. It's a lot easier to not give in when there's nothing to give :)

I'm telling you people, the change is awesome. When the pacifier was in-use during the wee hours, he'd want to read books and rock for awhile before bed (not that I hated that part! I loved that time we spent together). Now that it's gone, after he gets his pajamas on, he runs out into the hallway to yell, "DADA! Na-nye!" Then he tries to crawl into his crib while he waits for Kevin to comes into his room. Colin gives us each hugs and kisses, and lies down in his crib, gets covered up with his blanket, and says, "bye bye" to us. How freakin' easy is that? And now when he wakes up, it's because one of his teeth is busting through. After a little bit of orajel, he goes right back to sleep.

Colin has been spending an hour every night in underwear for the past few weeks. Over the weekend, Colin wore his training pants for a few hours in the morning and evening. He peed on his potty about 10 times, and pooped once or twice too! He doesn't quite have the foresight set to tell us if he needs to go yet, so he needs to be reminded, but usually he'll go every hour or so. He also knows when he doesn't have to go. I gave Sandy the go-ahead to try it at daycare, and it didn't work out so well. She wants him to wear pants there, otherwise all the other kids want to prance around sans pants, and that's just not going to work. He'll sit on her potty for 10-15 minutes but won't do anything. So we're waiting until he feels comfortable going potty there before we send underwear again. Colin knows how to say "pee," "poop," and "potty" now, and sometimes he tries to pull up his underwear/pants. If he's not trained by Christmas break, my plan is to hit it hard then as much as I can and hopefully start off 2011 with no diaper laundry!

Happy Half Birthday!

Dear Colin,

You just celebrated your golden monthday. You're 18 months old and born on the 18th! We celebrated extra special by having some great food.
Chicken Veggie Tortellini (one of our favorite e-mealz recipes):
and, of course, cupcakes and ice cream.

Then we took your monthday picture. You actually were kind of hamming it up for the camera this time! Here you are in your undies, which you wear every night for a little while before taking a bath.
You are such a goofy little boy. You're always saying something and you're always moving. You want to be in the midst of all the action; whether it's watching Mommy or Daddy cook (and eating your way through the preparation of supper), or ripping apart the office.

You have started to show an interest in potty training again. Last week, you went potty 4 days in a row before bath time. Over the weekend, you went potty once before and once after your naps. You're still very inconsistent with it, but we're happy you're starting to want to try again.

Your favorite things are still trucks (dig digs), lawnmowers, food, and being outside. You get so excited about trucks you see. You can spot a lawnmower--riding, push, toy--from a mile away. Sandy says there's no food she makes that you don't like. She says you always finish your food, and we believe her. You're eating your veggies so well now too! We had broccoli tonight and you chowed right down. And we're not so sure what we're going to do with you when it's 30 below with 3 feet of snow. Mommy and Daddy won't be going outside when it's that cold out.

You now have 10 teeth.

You can point to your nose, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, fingers, toes, feet, back, belly, belly button, head, and hair.

Your newest word is "off." You are very good at telling us when you want something off (hat, mittens, shoes, coat, a light...).

The only time you use your nukie right now is in the middle of the night and you wake up asking for it. By that time, Daddy and I are so tired that we just give in. I have bad news for you though. We have devised a plan, using the Bye-Bye Binky method. According to the plan, you will start to hate your nukie and make your own decision about getting rid of it. The plan involves poking holes in it, and then cutting off the tip. I'm sorry we're doing this to you, but you're old enough not to need it anymore, even at night time.

I can't believe it has already been a year and a half already. You mean the world to me, and I am so lucky to be your Mommy. I can't imagine my life without you anymore.
Love,
Mama

Since I got so many comments about the picture where Colin is walking Rocket, here is a bonus clip of Rocket walking Colin this past weekend.

In case you're wondering, Colin did pull Rocket around that light pole at the end. He's a tough little guy.

Weekend antecdotes

Colin is able to open the refrigerator and get his sippy cup, take a drink, put it back, and close the door without any help from us.

A little while after he woke up from his nap today, I was sitting here in the office and he signed "milk" and said "ma!" (his word for milk). I told him to go get a drink and I stayed in here. 30 seconds later, he walked into the office carrying the whole half-gallon of milk and saying, "ma." Apparently there wasn't a sippy cup ready to go in the fridge for him.

* * *

Last night after supper, Colin had a lot of water to drink. He went pee on the potty before his bath, took a bath, and ran around the house naked for awhile. All of a sudden, Kevin and I heard pee hitting the floor. I scooped him up and sat him back on his potty while Kevin cleaned up the mess. Colin told me to sit on the toilet seat, so I did. A few seconds later, he stood up, did his potty dance (even though there was no pee in it), and promptly projectile vomited. All the water he drank, plus the excitement of running around naked must have upset his tummy a little. He looked at me like he didn't know what had just come out of his mouth. I cleaned him up, re-brushed his teeth, and put him to bed. All I can say is I'm sure glad he told me to sit on the toilet, otherwise he would have thrown up all over me!

Happy 16 monthday!

You can now sign about 15 words. Your newest ones include:
truck, baby, fish, eat, play, cheese, apple, help, please, thank you, and we're working on sleep. You're putting words together into short phrases too.

Your new favorite words and phrases are:
There it/he is!, That way, ooooooh, mail, teeth, buckle, cheese, bye, and Rocket

(He was pointing to a semi trailer the neighbors had parked in their driveway. And excuse the random "hello!" which was directed at said neighbor)

You are sprouting some molars! You threw quite a tantrum on Monday morning, and mommy got a little peek inside your mouth and found out that two of your upper molars had already poked through. I guess you're skipping those lateral incisors and heading right for the big dogs.

You have decided you'd like to take a break from potty training. It's not as exciting anymore, and sometimes it can be hard to poop at the same time every day. We'll try again in another month or so.

Now you only take one nap from 12-2ish. We tried really hard to get you on this napping schedule so you'll have a smoother transition when you start going to Sandy's in a few weeks. Having this set schedule makes naptime so much easier for you to just close your eyes and fall asleep.

You're a little more brave with dirt now. You've found that sand and dirt can maybe even be fun to smush in your hands. You can always wash them off when you're done playing! But you do still like to clean and organize.

You love trucks. You love to see them on the highway, you love to see the construction equipment digging a big hole down the street, you love to push your toy trucks, you love to make truck sounds, and you know what a truck says (chhh!). You're happy to see trucks you can climb into at parks.


I'm so glad I got to spend a lot of time with you this summer, little man. We sure did learn a lot about each other, didn't we? I fall more in love with you each and every day.

Love, Mommy

Picks and Pans for 400, Alex.

Potty training:
Colin almost always poops on his potty after breakfast. The rest of the times he poops, it's touch and go. As for pee, sometimes he does it in his potty, sometimes he sits on his potty then stands up and pees on the floor (ugh), most of the times he pees in his diaper.

I did buy some training pants. I put them on him when we're just hanging out at home for awhile--mostly in the afternoons. The first day, he peed in 2 pair and pooped and peed in 1 pair. Today, he sat on his potty and didn't go, so Kevin put his training pants back on, took him outside, and ran back in the house 1 minute later yelling, "Emergency!" holding a bewildered Colin at arms-length with a pair of wet trainers on.

It's all so inconsistent, it drives me batty. But I know that every success with the potty is a good thing. And I want him to feel wet and uncomfortable in his training pants to hopefully motivate him to go in his potty.


Pacifier:
Days 1-6.5 were great. That 7th day, Colin started to realize what was happening and started demanding his pacifier more. I held strong though. It had been a week and I wasn't going to go back now! Day 8 was just as bad. Today is better...he was pretty upset this morning, but after that episode, he got along just fine without it.

Words:
Kevin said Colin said "lawnmower" plain as day. I've heard him say "mawmow"--or something like it--before, but Kevin swears there was an L in the beginning and an R at the end.

Me:
I'm going to run a stinkin' 5K on Sept. 18 with my friend Laura. Not gonna lie--I'm doing this for killer abs and a t-shirt. Today was training day #2 and it has been going surprisingly well, considering I hate running, I have asthma, I taste blood, I hate sweating, and I eventually get shin splints. Today I ran farther than I did on training day #1, so I guess that's a good thing.

Food:
We signed up for e-mealz. Leah told me about it, so we decided to dive in. I went grocery shopping today and spent less than $112 on food for 5 full meals, along with lunch/breakfast/snack items. I made my first e-mealz meal today--poppyseed chicken, almond french green beans, sugared peaches (hello! yum.), and dinner rolls. It was good, and we have enough leftovers for 2. The recipe was super easy, too. Check it out if you are interested in meal planning!

Weekend:
Colin and I are heading down to Roch tomorrow to my parents' house. My mom is hosting a Norwex party, and my friends will be there. I'm hoping to maybe hit up a park while we're down there. I'm sure Colin is sick of the same parks we go to over and over again.

Your reward for reading this:
The day I let C pick out his own socks and shoes (prior to paci-weaning, obv.):

In Stillwater:

Colin LOVES to walk Rocket. Rocket is getting better about going slowly when Colin is holding his leash.

The Scoop on Poop

He'll kill me when he's in high school for writing about this. He should be glad I didn't take a picture of him next to his first potty poop a la Kate Gosselin.

I recently read an excerpt from the book Diaper Free Before 3 on Amazon, and realized that Colin is ready for potty training. He was ready for it a long time ago. I've just been lazy. Why go through all that work when he can just go in his diaper, right? Well...truthfully, I don't mind cleaning out his solid poops, because they just get dumped in the toilet. But I think it's safe to say I'm not thoroughly enjoying rinsing the mushier ones. So...the more he poops in the potty, the less time Kevin or I spend doing that.

Both yesterday morning and this morning, I put Colin on his potty a few minutes after breakfast and he pooped! Yesterday he was kind of bewildered by the whole idea, but today he seemed a little more interested.

I have 5 full weeks of summer left (which I just counted out and realized MORE than half my summer is gone. Summer school ended today. :(). If I can at least get a good start on this--if not train him completely--that would be awesome.

So here's the plan. I'm going to put him on his potty a few minutes after every meal. That's when he usually poops. I'm also going to put him on his potty when he wakes up in the morning and after naps. Maybe he'll realize "hey...I can pee in the potty instead of my diaper!"

The plan does not include running to the store anytime soon to buy underwear, because he is just not ready for that yet. But when the time comes that he's communicating that he needs to go, we'll spring for the Scooby Doo or Superman or Spongebob or whatever undies.