Peepee on the potty

That's the phrase we use. Everyone has a different one. And I'm not really sure how that one became ours. I'm pretty sure Ryan said it first. "Cade, do you want to go peepee on the potty?" And now it's stuck. Not my favorite, but it gets the job done!

Speaking of which...

Yesterday, Cade went peepee on the potty 12 times. Yes, that's TWELVE times. And in between, there were only 2 slightly wet diapers. But the diaper during naptime didn't get wet! There were only 2 of the times that he went peepee on the potty (see? I can't not say it!) that I suggested it. All of the rest of them were his idea. And he peed every time he sat on the potty.

The child is a pee-making machine. Several of those times were less than 20 minutes apart. And he peed. Every. Single. Time. He gets frogs (nerds) every time he pees. But since he was doing so well yesterday, and I wanted to encourage that, I upped the ante to keep him wanting to go. Sometimes that was a phone call to Daddy or Nana or Papa or Aunt Cora. Sometimes it was watching TV. One time, it was getting to ride in Daddy's car when he got home from work. But let me tell you, that kid is not only a pee-making maching, he is SMART. After we had watched TV twice in a row, I told him that he had to go two more times before he could watch Diego again. And dadgum if that kid didn't go pee, then wait about 5 minutes, and ask to go again. And did! Turkey.

We still had a poopy diaper yesterday. But we made some serious progress. And it has, so far, (knock on wood) continued today. He's already gone 8 times today. There's only been once that his diaper was even slightly wet, and that was after a bout of fit-throwing and spankings, so I'm pretty sure he accidentally peed a little when he was crying hysterically. I mean, we all do that, right? No? Hmm. OK. :)

The only problem now is that I'm having a hard time getting excited every single time he goes peepee. Because now I know he can. On command, apparently. And I had no idea how tiring it is to strip him down and get him dressed 9,000 times a day. (He just had on a diaper today until after lunch, which helped) And to have to listen to Ava crying while I can't tend to her because I'm in the bathroom with Cade. But we will conquer this. And it might not be right now. I'm trying to prepare myself for the fact that we may do this 4 days in a row, and then relapse when we go to church on Sunday. But it's PROGRESS. Yay!!

Poop rewards

We're working on potty-training. Not hard-core potty-training, but slightly more serious than before. We're trying to put him on the potty when he first gets up in the morning and before bed, and any time in between when he mentions that he might be interested. And also if I think he's about to poop :)

So far, we've had probably 10-15 times that he's gone peepee on the potty. (Yay!) We've actually had one time that he went poopoo on the potty (side note: you probably don't want to continue reading this if you're not a mom :). It was after he had been constipated for a few days and I'd started feeding him fiber like crazy, so it was kind of a one-time deal that none of us really care to repeat.

Here are a few conversations we've had lately:

Cade: 'Anna go to Tar-get.
Mommy: OK, go poopoo on the potty and we can go to Target.
Cade: No. 'Anna go to Tar-get.
Mommy: You have to go poopoo on the potty first.
Cade: No. 'Anna go to Tar-get.
...And nothing.

Cade: I 'ant ice screen.
Mommy: OK, go poopoo on the potty and you can have ice cream.
Cade: I 'ant ice screen, cu-cake, choc-wat.
Mommy: OK, you can have ice cream, a cupcake, and chocolate if you go poopoo on the potty.
Cade: I 'ant ice screen, cu-cake, choc-wat, frogs [this is what he calls Nerds...they look like frogs jumping on the package...go look! :)].
Mommy: OK, you can have ice cream, a cupcake, chocolate, and frogs if you go poopoo on the potty.
....And nothing.

It's hysterical. All day long, this is what we do...he mentions something that he wants and I tell him he can have it if he'll go poopoo on the potty. Some other things that have been promised (but none have happened yet!) include: going to the zoo, riding in Daddy's car, going to eat lunch with Daddy, riding in the van, and once I may have told him he could have a million dollars. Good thing he doesn't know what that is. But we're probably going to be in trouble when he randomly decides to actually do it :)

First day of preschool

Cade started preschool today. It's only 5 hours. And right now, it's only once a week. But still...I was a mess last night.

I cried while I was getting all of his stuff together last night. I cried while Ryan and I were praying before we went to sleep. And then this morning...I was ok. I prayed with Cade before we got Ava up, and I got a little teary while I was praying, but it made me feel better. I know that no matter what, God is in control and is watching over my sweet boy when I'm not with him. For that matter, He's in control and watches over Cade when I AM with him :)

It's been really rough around here lately. And that's one of the reasons that we needed to do this. It'll be good for Cade socially, and I know that he'll learn some things earlier than he probably would being here with me and Ava, just because Ava needs so much attention right now. It'll be good for me to have a break from him every now and then (can I just say that it was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G to eat lunch by myself??? [Ava was napping]). It'll be good for Ava to have some peace and quiet and undivided attention from Mommy. I know this is the right thing for our family right now.

But. That little boy has been with me all day every day since he was born. Two years, 4 months, and 13 days ago. The times he's been away from me have been with family. It's hard for me to know that he's having experiences that I'm not a part of. It's hard for me to let go and trust that someone else is capable of taking care of him. It's hard for me to let someone else teach him new things. But I am. With God's help. And a few tears. :)

The fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.


Yesterday at church, our pastor mentioned these verses during his sermon. I've heard them many, many times in my life. I know that because I am a Christian, the Spirit lives in me and therefore, the fruit of the Spirit should be evident in my life. The sad truth is that most of the time, they are not. On a good day, several of these might be displayed in certain areas. On a bad day, though, very few, if any, are shown.

My pastor said something that I hadn't really thought about before. He talked about how if you are a Christian, these should be evident. Whether it is in your personality to be gentle, or patient, or peaceful, doesn't matter. The Spirit is all of those things and since the Spirit lives in you, you have no excuse to not display these attributes. If you are incapable of it, you probably should re-think whether you are actually a Christian.

Wow. It's so easy to try to get by with not being patient by just chalking it up to not being a patient person. But in Matthew 7, Jesus reminds us that good trees bear good fruit, and that we will be recognized by our fruit.

I guess I just needed this reminder that I should be producing "good fruit." All of the fruit of the Spirit are things I want my children to see and emulate, but it's difficult for them to do that if they don't see it in my life every day.

No pressure. :)

Rescue Pack! Comin' to the rescue!

Is it in your head now? Because I can't get it out of mine!!! Seriously, I've watched Go, Diego, Go probably 4 times total IN MY LIFE now, and that song is stuck in my head constantly!!!

Let me back up...

Cade is 2 years and 4 months old now. We have been adamant from the beginning with him that we were not going to sit him in front of the TV for the purpose of entertainment and/or a babysitter. And we haven't. For about the last year, he's gotten to watch about 5 minutes of whatever we put on (usually something we've DVR'ed for us to watch :) while he drinks his milk before bed. But that's pretty much the extent of his TV-watching. Well...except for college football season. But he wasn't really old enough last year to notice much about it, so I don't really count that. It was on, but he definitely wasn't paying attention. And that's one of the reasons we've held on as long as we did to the no-TV-watching rule. He just wasn't really interested.

I don't know whether I believe all the stuff about kids who watch TV before they're 2 being more likely to have ADD/ADHD, but I do believe that there's really not a good reason to plop them in front of a TV when they're a baby. I'm a stay-at-home mom. My job is to be a mom and interact with my children, not keep them entertained with something else so I can do what I want. .....And stepping off my soapbox now.... :)

(Disclaimer: if you are pregnant and/or sick, you have a free license to keep your child/ren occupied any way possible...if Cade had been willing to watch TV for hours while I was so sick with Ava, this might be a whole different blog post ;)

Anyway, so FOR US, that was the choice we made. No TV for our kids for as long as possible.

Last week, Ryan took off work for 3 days, giving the 4 of us 5 whole days to spend together. No plans except for a few things around the house. It was glorious.

However. We started noticing that Cade was getting crankier and needing more attention the more Daddy was around. Crap. I guess he had gotten used to Mommy not giving him her undivided attention anymore, but when he had all that time when one of us COULD give him undivided attention, he got spoiled. OK, not really spoiled, but came to expect more attention again. I started panicking. He was throwing fits every time I nursed Ava. What was it going to be like when Daddy went back to work and I had to deal with the monster by myself???

Seems like everyone I know advised us to let Cade have something special that he could only do while I was nursing so he wouldn't resent that time. We hadn't really done that because there hadn't been a need to. Sure, he had thrown a few fits here and there, but for the most part, it was manageable. But I didn't see that working much more. So we made the decision to try the TV. As a "only-while-Mommy-is-nursing-Ava" distraction. I honestly didn't know if it would even work. Oh, but it has. We've watched some Diego, some Dora, some Sesame Street, even some Ice Age and Madagascar.

Here are my thoughts: I like Diego better than Dora. Ryan hates them both :) Sesame Street is NOT the same as it was when I was a kid and I don't like it. It's fun to watch the kid movies with Cade (even if it's only in 10 minute increments...kinda hard to follow a storyline, but oh, well :), BUT I noticed that he was SO focused on them that he ignored me. With Dora and Diego, when they ask a question, I repeat it to Cade to see if he'll answer. A lot of times, it's still too hard for him, but most of the time, he at least acknowledges that I'm talking to him.

So for now, we're sticking to things like Diego that have at least a small amount of educational value to them. And I'm stuck with random songs in my head. Small price to pay for some peace while nursing ;)

Bathroom makeover

This post is for an entry to a giveaway, so don't feel obligated to read it, unless you just want to :) If you want to enter, too, head over to A Year With Mom and Dad. But you need to hurry. It ends soon! (It's for a $250 gift card to WalMart so you can makeover a room in your house!!! How cool is that?)

Here's a picture of our bathroom:



Please ignore the hanging laundry. And the stuff all over the counter :)
Our bathroom is the only room in our house that has not been redone since we moved in. It has wallpaper. We have already removed lots of wallpaper from this house (can you say built in the 90s??). I personally don't really want to touch this room. I think it looks fine. Well, fine, as in, not worth it to me to do anything about it :) It drives Ryan crazy. He despises the wallpaper. He wants it gone. The other reason I don't want to do anything about it is that it costs money :) So if we were to win, I would be much more agreeable to actually taking down the wallpaper and painting. Oh, and something else that would be nice...notice the shower. In front of it is a towel. Yep, we don't have rugs in our bathroom. The rugs that we got for our wedding are in the guest (kids) bathroom, leaving us with none. So I'd definitely buy some rugs, too :)

Playgroup

I love playgroup. It's a sometimes-super-chaotic time to let your child run around with other children and not worry (too much) about what they're getting into. And it sometimes is the only reason that said child is not locked in his room. For his own safety. :)

The group of SAHMs I spend most of my time with (when I'm not actually staying-at-home :) has been having playgroup twice a month for about a year now. We rotate who hosts it every month, and it's always unpredictable who will actually show up. We had one earlier this year with 3 moms. We had one earlier this month with about 12 moms. Which means about a million children. But we have a great time talking (read: yelling to be heard over the children) with other adults, and our kiddos just run around playing. It's great! Saves my sanity on a fairly regular basis.