Updates

Potty update: A couple of days ago, after a really rough patch of potty training (48 hours of refusing to even sit on potty, lots of tears and refusals), I was ready to throw in the towel. Brian and I decided to step back and just try a more casual approach for a few more days and see what happens. Keep offering it if he wants to, no pressure, wear diapers if we're going out for longer than a few minutes, just see what happens.

It seems that as soon as we took the pressure off (him and ourselves), he started making progress again. Several times he would start to pee and stop and run to the potty to finish. Progress. Did the same thing once with poop. Progress. He is willing to go to sit on the potty and try a few times, especially when it's associated with an activity ("Before we go bye-bye, we always try to go potty.") Progress. So I'm not saying that we're close, or that we're in it for the long haul, but it seems worth continuing in this fashion for now.

Baby update: I go back to the OB this Thursday and then I'm on weekly visits! Can you believe it? At my last appointment, she asked me to look at our calendar, considering the days that she's at our hospital the week before I'm due, and come back with our preferred induction date. Ummmm...really? Pick our baby's birthday? So I've got my preference lined up, but I'm not ready to speak it aloud until it's scheduled. We got the bassinet from Dad and Sue's attic when we were there at Thanksgiving, and it's sitting in our bedroom as a reminder that things will be changing soon. (Not that we need a reminder considering my physique). That's the only physical thing we've done to get ready, but the rest I think we can get out right after Christmas. I've never delivered early before so I'm not going to get my hopes up by having everything set up a month in advance like I've always done in the past. :)

Party update: Katy went to the sleepover party tonight, although I picked her up at 9pm. When I dropped her off, I had somewhat of a wistful feeling, because there were 10-12 first graders from her school, and I know most of them and their families through either Girl Scouts, church, or soccer. So I thought, "Oh, what a great group of girls, I'm so happy that Katy has good friends at school." When I picked her up, she was in a good mood and had a good time, but she said she felt left out because only she and Rachel were not spending the night. (Rachel is my friend Wendy's daughter, we had discussed it ahead of time so we could assure our daughters that they weren't the only ones not spending the night). I was really surprised that all the other girls were sleeping over. I still feel confident about our decision for our family, but I guess I just wish that there were more families who had the same rules. It would certainly make it easier to enforce - I don't want to always be the most protective parent in the bunch.

Perfectionist update: Speaking of my first-born child, she came home a bucket of tears on Friday afternoon. Not because someone had hurt her feelings, but because for the first time all year, she missed ONE word on her weekly spelling test. And it was a review test based on FORTY words the teacher picked from the whole year to practice this week. We practiced them the night before (she asked me to), and she only missed one out of forty. During the test, the teacher randomly picked 16 words, and she spelled "where" as "whare." Buckets of tears. I asked, "Is there ANYONE in your class who has never missed a spelling word? Everyone makes mistakes, honey. Even your teacher." She sobbed, "But Raul got all the words right on THIS test and THAT makes me feel like I'm a BAD SPELLER." Lord help us. If this is how she reacts to missing one word, we have a lifetime of big disappointments to get through. I wish I knew how to help her, but it's a struggle that I share with her.