Happiness Is: Getting Where You Need to Go

Happiness Is: Studious Preschool Ballerinas

Holding My Breath

I'm certain that as soon as I hit the "publish" button at the bottom of this screen, all three children will wake up vomiting with raging fevers and hoarse sounding coughs. How do I know this? Because I'm about to tell you how healthy we've been this winter.

I don't know about you, but my memory of last winter was The Worst Winter of All Time EVER in the areas of sickness and nasty weather. Maybe it was H1N1, maybe it was pregnancy making everything seem worse. But I know we were stuck at home for most of January and February because of illness and impassable roadways. And that just hasn't been the case for us this year.

Of course, "healthy" is a relative term. We were pretty sick in October, and since then there have probably been two weeks that the boys haven't had snotty noses. But other than that, one ear infection and one little low grade fever, we've been healthy. (No, seriously, that's super healthy.)

So the combination of this and SIXTY degrees today (in February?!?!) makes me cautiously optimistic that the groundhog was right? Maybe it's almost spring afterall? And this winter wasn't so bad? And we made it?

[insert no jinxing plea here]

Reason #263...

...that David is a different beast than Katy.

Potty Training.

In case you weren't reading here back then, I had a TIME training Katy. Let's see...you can read about it here, here, here, here, and here. Oh, wait. And here, here, and here. In fact, she went to preschool at 3 years, 4 months, and I was nervous up to the last minute that we weren't going to make it. And we were still having "poop accidents on purpose" after her 4th birthday.

David, however. I drug my feet getting started because when I gently asked if he wanted to go, he kept saying no. But one day I convinced him, made a big deal out of his success, and we haven't had to look back. After 2 or 3 days, he was accident free at home. With the exception of one time when he was busy playing with friends, he hasn't had any accidents at home for two weeks.  Even when we're out, he's mostly  keeping his diaper dry and telling me when he needs to go.  I'm shocked. All this time I've been dreading it, and he did so great.

My conclusion is that he was just ready. It certainly wasn't anything that I did differently this time. I had tried one other time in the fall and he had just pooped and peed all over the place and didn't seem to mind or notice. So this time he was ready, and I'm relieved.  Not that he won't continue to have accidents or setbacks, but this first few weeks has blown my expectations out of the water.

Next step is to transition to the big toilet, because cleaning out the plastic potty for my active boy is not the most pleasant part of parenting.

Dedicated Luke

Several weeks ago, we participated in our church's child dedication service for Luke. Once again, our families traveled long distances to stand with us and support our intentions to bring up our son in a Godly home. Joe also prayed for us, which was touching because he and Judy have prayed for all three of our kids' dedications, and they recently became grandparents for the first time.

We love you, Luke! I'm praying that we will live up to the task of helping you to be your spiritual best.

More Big Steps...this time for the Big Boys

Potty training has been an adventure, as usual. Every time David gets up from a nap/nighttime, it takes some serious convincing to change from diaper to underpants. Sometimes he flat out refuses with a screaming fit. And this is from a child who doesn't throw many screaming fits. He just REALLY doesn't want to be bothered with going to the potty. But today, once I got him in underpants, he's had a really good day, with lots of successes and only one accident. And he's even telling me when he has to go. Which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, this will stick. I'm hoping to avoid the back and forth for months that was so frustrating last time. We're taking advantage of the snow/ice days to stay home and focus on that potty.

And Luke is on the move. He loves to bounce and stand up and belly crawl. I do apologize for the number of Luke-focused videos lately, but these are the kinds of things that are just cute to see on video.

You'll also hear Luke's family song. We have a song for each of the kids that we sing with their name in it (here's David's, which came from "Daisy, Daisy," & Katy's). If you recognize the tune and know the original version, you may question my nurturing skills. (I didn't plan it, it just came out!)