We had a nice, relatively relaxed day…
Ate a tasty dinner of lasagna, oven roasted veggies, and
Italian herb bread with cheesy garlic butter. Not exactly
traditional Thanksgiving, but yummy! (better than turkey, in my
opinion!) We’ll do the traditional thing tomorrow. Anyway, the
point of this post is for the following videos. When Lex saw
the table cloth on the table (rare in our house) he decided to
get out the placemats too… Make sure your speakers aren’t too
loud!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPdP_HKp82U]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCUc0Er1MQQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5C1mTvmRfc]

I guess we have some work to do on table
manners.

We left the kids with a real, paid
babysitter for the first time! Our neighbor across the street
came VERY highly recommended, so we asked her to come over for
a few hours while Alan and I went to a meeting. The kids loved
her. Eve frequently cries when I leave and her favorite thing
to say is “coming, coming” as she follows me whenever I go.
Today I gave her a hug and handed her to Emily. She gave Emily
a hug and they went to play. When we got back the kids barely
noticed our return! For awhile after Emily left, Eve walked
around the house saying “emilly… eemmillyy…” :) Good
babysitter!!

Lex is 3 1/2yrs old today! Good thing I
have the Lilypie tickers up top to remind me of such things :)
We went to Michelle’s house and the post office this morning,
no diapers and no accidents. I moved his little potty in to the
bathroom over the weekend and he had no trouble with it. In
fact, now he generally uses the toilet instead of the potty,
since he’s in the bathroom anyway. He’s such an amazing boy! So
sweet, huggy, and smart! He has been extra sweet lately (for
the most part!) and I think it’s because we’ve been home
constantly with very little going on. He thrives on consistency
and enjoys his alone time. Definitely an introvert :) I get a
little bored, but we’ve been doing a lot of little stuff around
the house (baking, crafts, games, etc.) so life is
good.

We went to a local art museum that let’s kids
play with tons of art supplies. We went a few weeks ago, so you
may already know about this. Anyway, the kids love playing with
the stamps they have there, so when Grandma offered me her big
stamp collection (stamps and ink, not postage stamps :) ) I
said sure. We got them out yesterday and they had a blast!!
They stamped for a long time in the morning, then Lex got them
out again in the afternoon. At first it was fun playing with
all of the different pretty stamps and colors… but it got a
little out of control! Lex discovered that he could make finger
prints… then hand prints! I ended up carting him upstairs to
the bathtub (kicking and screaming because he wanted to keep
stamping!) I thought the ink was washable since it easily wiped
up when we were sitting there, but apparently you only have a
short window for clean up. By the time I got them done with the
bath and back downstairs the ink had dried. We now have lots of
smudges and a purple Lex hand print on the table. :/ They had
so much fun that I hate to take the stamps away forever, but
I’m definitely going to have to put some thought into how best
to manage the project next time around :)

Lex has gone for two days and over night
with no accidents or wet diapers! He woke up this morning with
a dry pull-up and yesterday and today we went out and he came
home with a dry pull-up. We reminded him, of course, and he
used the public bathrooms sometimes while we were out. We also
didn’t use the reminder timer much yesterday or at all today. I
think it’s a little too early to consider him p0tty trained (I
feel like I’m talking about a puppy here), but we are well on
the way. I think I’ll consider the job done when his potty is
in the bathroom, not the living room!

This no plug thing is killing me. Eve has
always been an awesome sleeper and now she’s just a mess. It’s
been five days now and she still screams every time I try to
put her down. She’s back in the pack-n-play for the most part
because she won’t stay in her bed. What normally happens is
after 20 minutes of screaming I give in and lay down with her.
Then, and only then, she falls asleep. If I don’t lay down with
her, she screams and screams and screams… she’s very loud,
very persistent, and very articulate. It breaks my heart. One
of the hardest parts of parenting, I think, is the uncertainty
of when something moves from being helpful to being a habit. I
don’t necessarily mind laying down with her to help her with
this transition, but I don’t want to end up in a situation
where the only way she’ll sleep is if I lay down with her… oh
wait, we’re already there!

On the
bright side, potty training is going very well! Lex made it all
day today with no accidents!! When we went to the WW meeting
(our first outing of the week!) I gave him the choice of a
pull-up or nothing. He said, “Mommy, I want a pull-up, just in
case, because I don’t want to get any pee in my car seat!” The
line is so familiar I’m sure I’ve uttered it several times this
week, in anticipation of today :) Pull-ups are pretty fancy
these days and have “magic” stars that disappear when the
diaper is wet. We made a deal that if the stars were still
there when we got home (ie: no pee in the diaper) he would get
a sticker and a treat. He did it! We went to the WW meeting and
ran a few errands and he used the public bathrooms twice and
came home with a dry pull-up! He is awesome! :)

I think Lex is officially a better reader
than Alan and I both. He frequently corrects us when we’re
reading stories. He has emphasis, inflection, and real
understanding to his reading. It’s pretty impressive listening
to him read. (He is reading The Cat in the Hat to Alan right
now)

We are on day three of the rough week and
we’re doing ok. For those of you who were worried :) The
biggest challenge so far has been Eve at nap and night time.
She still asks for her plug, even though she knows its in the
garbage, and has replaced the plug with poor doggie’s nose.
That thing is going to need a daily bath for awhile!

I tried
to get them to hold hands and smile for me, but this was all I
got. Silly kids :)

Lex has been doing awesome with the potty training!
Yesterday he only had one small accident and I think it might
have been my fault! I accidentally scared him at the end of the
day when he was super tired. He started crying and I pulled him
into my lap to comfort him, then I felt the wet pants. My bad!
Today he had two accidents in the morning and that was it. I
have no real baseline to compare any of this, but I think he’s
doing an amazing job! We still have the potty in the living
room and the oven timer goes off every 1/2hr or so (when I
remember to reset it). Soon we are all going to be trained to
pee when the oven timer goes off. Yesterday morning we had
discussions and negotiations about sitting on the potty when
the timer went off, but today he right there every time.
Pavlovian potty training?

Teeth
brushing at the end of the day.
(Someone needs to
clean that mirror!)

When daddy dresses the baby…

When mommy dresses the baby…

(In full
disclosure, she wanted the monkey hat and wore it for awhile
even after I put her in real clothes.)