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FINALLY - an update!!! 01/14/08
January 14, 2008
WOW - I can't believe it's been so long!!! I've been collecting little bits and pieces all along the way but just haven't taken the time to post it out here...........so, here it goes! I'm just going to throw this out all there and then start a new entry next week. Welcome to 2008!! 8-15-07 Aidan is FINALLY POTTY TRAINED!!!!! As any parent who's gone through potty training can tell you, getting to this milestone is HUGE. Finally, we have a potty-trained boy! It's been a long road to getting here we wrote down in his potty book when he first used the potty, which was a full YEAR ago in July! He peed in the potty all on his own but then he wasn't interested in doing it again for months. This spring, we started pushing him a little more to pee in the potty but I finally realized that something my Aunt told me was totally true there is no forcing potty-training. Either they are mentally there or they're not. This saved all involved some unnecessary stress and pressure. Over the summer, he started peeing in the potty on a consistent basis, but he flat-out refused to poop in the potty until a few weeks ago. I was doing some trouble-shooting on the subject online one day when I found something that made sense it said that kids who refuse to poop on the potty (who are peeing in the potty just fine) may be constipated and having painful bowel movements. That hadn't occurred to me, but he sometimes did seem a bit constipated. I bought some prune juice and started mixing it with his regular juice a few times a day and I upped his fiber intake by giving him more fruits and veggies, whole grain bread, etc. We also used another tip I found to "practice" sitting on the potty with absolutely no expectations. We'd have him go sit on the potty for just a few minutes to take some of the mystery out of it for him so that he could see exactly what he'd be doing when he did poop on the potty. And then to up the encouragement factor we bought him some special suckers that he can ONLY get when he's pooped in the potty (Ring Pops have worked very well). That combo really did the trick and that extra little bit of incentive really got him jazzed about the whole thing. Over the past few weeks, he's only had 1 accident. He'll just go pee all on his own now, which is so cool after years of diapers I am SO ready to move on! I still have him in a pull-up overnight, which I'll continue for awhile, but other than that, he's on his way! Steve and I are way excited about this. Anything other than peeing in his pants is good with us right about now. If he's outside and he has to pee, he'll just go right there in the yard and we couldn't be happier "look, he's not peeing his pants!!!" Most days, when we're inside, he prefers to either have no pants on at all or elastic-waist pants he can easily get on and off. I had read that on BabyCenter that keeping them pants-less can encourage using the potty, since there's nothing there to catch the pee and that awareness keeps them more focused on making it to the potty. That seemed to work really well for Aidan after doing that for awhile, that's when he started regularly peeing in the potty a few months ago. Pull-ups did absolutely nothing to encourage him along and, while he does like his underwear, some days he'll inform me that he wants to have "just bare butts" instead of underwear. I'm willing to do whatever's easiest for him and keeps him motivated to use the potty!! The other day he was discouraged because he was trying to get his pants down (they were zipper and button jean shorts) and he only half-way made it after struggling with his pants, leaving a little puddle on the hallway floor. We left him pants-less after that so that the rest of the day he was successful. Now that he's doing well, I do NOT want him to regress, even if I have a half-naked boy running around. LOL Once he's got it all down, then we'll work more on minding the bathroom Ps and Qs for now, however he can get the job done is good! And now, onto a non-poop subject!! I caught a re-run of Oprah yesterday that I really, really liked. It was on the age-old Working Mother / Stay-At-Home Mom debate. They had women who felt passionate on both sides of the fence making their arguments. Here's what the show psychologist, Dr. Robin had to say: "America is an either/or country," she says. "We're a black or white, pro-life or pro-choice, Democrat or Republican. There's all this splitting that we do, and we lose the wisdom of both worlds. We lose the wisdom of being able to be women at our bestblessing the journey of someone who has found their way and not trying to make it your way." Dr. Robin says women can't have it all. In fact, no one can. "That's an illusion that any of us can have it all," she says. "The goal isn't to have it all...it's to be attuned with yourself and with your children. Attuned means 'I'm connected.'" If a stay-at-home mother becomes disconnected or exhausted, it's as if she isn't there at all, Dr. Robin says. The same goes for working moms. If a businesswoman is preoccupied with work and checking her Blackberry when she should be cheering on her child at a soccer game, then she might as well have stayed at the office. Dr. Robin says that if she had attended the mothers' roundtable discussion, she would have asked the women to argue the opposite positionworking moms explain why it's important to stay home and stay-at-home moms argue why it's better to work outside the home. "We need to be able to drop our egos, and I mean, the way in which you see the world," she says. "[This] begins to expand our hearts, our minds, our spirits, and it takes the judgment away." What's most important isn't whether you work outside the home or whether you're at home. What matters is that you have a strong connection with your child and that you're there for them, regardless of where you are at 11am on a Tuesday. I know I have a strong connection with Aidan that I never question. I thought it was a really interesting show. You can see the highlights on Oprah.com it's the show with Elizabeth Vargas discussing her decision to leave the evening news to spend more time at home. Since Summer is on its way out, we are of course gearing up for Autumn in a big way at our house!! I'm already planning a costume party for Halloween and have almost all of our weekends booked with fun Fall stuff to do. There are pumpkin and apple farms to visit, festivals at the Zoo, the Museum, the park! There are pumpkins to be carved and SO many things to do. I'm so excited! One of the things we're planning to do in the next few weeks is to go to the Day Out with Thomas event in Lebanon, OH. Thomas makes a visit and we can actually buy tickets to ride on him. I asked Aidan if he'd like to go see Thomas and meet Sir Topham Hatt and he said, "I would like to see Thomas! But I don't want to meet Soppum Hatt. I don't like him". I asked him why and he said, "Because he talks funny". I said, "How does he talk funny?" and he lowered his voice and imitated him by saying, "YOU ARE A VERY USEFUL ENGINE" in a very deep voice. That cracked me up. I haven't seen him try to impersonate somebody else's voice before. Ha! He's very into Thomas again all of a sudden, after months of not wanting to watch his Thomas DVDs. Now he's all about it. For awhile, he wanted to watch only "Little Einsteins" and then he got on a "Charlie and Lola" kick. Now he's really getting into his Thomas tracks and finally, just now finally wanting to put the tracks together and put his trains on them. Up until now, he's only wanted to throw his tracks around and would throw a big old tizzy if you tried to help him put them together. And now onto my favorite subject HALLOWEEN!!! I asked Aidan last week if he had any idea what he'd like to dress up as on Halloween. He thought about it for a minute and said, "Something BIG". When I said, "Oh, really? What else?" He said, "Something BIG that has big sticks and bangs on things!" Wow if that's not a little boy for ya! I'm already planning my costume too, but THAT will have to be a surprise until after Halloween. :) He is saying the most hilarious stuff lately. Steve's mom said that yesterday they went out for lunch and my father in law ordered tomato-basil soup with parmesan cheese on top of it. She said when the waitress brought it to the table and handed it to him, Aidan wrinkled up his nose and said, "Ew, that smells like barth, Papaw". She asked, "What's barth?" and Aidan said, "No, mamaw, BARTH like when you get sick on the ground". She said they about lost it. He seems to say some funny new thing every day. I came home to a lovely mess on Wednesday night apparently the cat projectile barfed up some cat food in the basement. And the reason I think it was projectile was because it's like the whole length of the step right at the bottom of the basement stairs. Ick!! I started cleaning it up last night but realized that I had no carpet cleaner and by then it was Aidan's bath time. I put him in the bath and when he got out, I started cleaning some more. Aidan said, "I'm going to watch you clean that up" and then while I was scrubbing on the carpet he shook his head and said, "Idiots!" I said, "Who are you calling an idiot?" and he pointed at the carpet and said, "I'm calling that sick idiots! That's idiots right there". I told Steve that when he called during his lunch break and he was cracking up. He is saying the craziest stuff right now! 10-27-07 Funny things Aidan's doing: Creating his own words. He was saying "bigot" the other day and we asked what that meant. He said "a bigot is a big idiot". We both laughed and said, "Well, yes, that's true!" Ha ha!! He combines words like that to create his own. When he's watching something on TV that's scaring him, he'll run into the hallway and peek around the corner at the T V. Apparently if he isn't in the same room with whatever thing is scaring him, then he's OK. We don't let him watch anything other than Playhouse Disney or Thomas the Tank, though, so I don't worry that he's seeing anything that's too much for him........I can only imagine if we put on something REALLY scary the poor child would lose his mind! We are having a Halloween costume party tonight, so we've decorated the entire house in fake spider webs, lights, you name it. Aidan likes it for the most part but had a big problem with me sticking things on the walls he told me countless times that "we don't put things on walls, Mommy!" I told him that usually we don't, but we DO put decorations on walls! We have a big Dracula face on our living room wall and he doesn't like that at all. When Steve was putting it up, he said, "You know what Aidan's going to say when he sees this 'I don't yike that, Daddy. That needs to come down, Daddy'." And that's exactly what he said when he saw it! He's so funny when we were carving pumpkins, he didn't want to stick his hand inside the pumpkin to scrape it out because he "didn't want to get his hands all yucky". Oddly enough, he doesn't have this same level of cleanliness when he's outside digging in the dirt with a stick or making any other kind of mess! I think the slime factor is what kills it for him. LOL Flushing Bertie This is one that will go down in infamy! Last week, Steve was gone in the evenings because he was shooting an independent movie. I was home alone with Aidan who was in SUCH a mood! He was just deliberately acting up and definitely testing the boundaries. At one point I asked him what was going on with him and he said, "I just want to make you MAD!" I told him that it would work out better for him if he made me happy, but again, he was in a foul mood for some reason. Anyhoo, we muddled through the evening. My mother-in-law called to relay a message to me and we were on the phone for MAYBE 5 minutes. While I was on the phone with her, Aidan went into the bathroom and I noticed that things had grown oddly silent.........then the toilet flushed. I walked in there to find him with his little wet wipes in his hand and one in the toilet. I assumed that he was flushing those and I took the package away from him and thought nothing else of it.............until later, when Aidan was in bed. I flushed the toilet and it looked like it was going to overflow. I thought that was weird, but the water slowly drained back out, so I didn't think much more of it..........until later, when I flushed it again and got the same response. That's when I started revisiting the night's events and a thought occurred to me where is Bertie the Bus? Those of you familiar with Thomas the Tank will know who Bertie is. Aidan had been playing with Bertie but ever since he was in the bathroom flushing wipes down the toilet, I hadn't seen him. I looked through the house quickly and didn't see any sign of him anywhere. Could he have flushed him down the toilet??!?!?!?! I left Steve a voicemail letting him know what was up hoping that I was wrong about Bertie taking an unfortunate trip down the toilet. When Steve got home that night, he tried plunging the toilet but didn't have any luck. The next day he called a plumber and guess what? Bertie was indeed in the toilet. Arrrrgh!!!!! For $150 we got him back. Not cool! What's crazy is that up until now, Aidan has never thrown anything in the toilet! I really thought by almost-4 we'd be past that phase, but apparently not! He has since received many, many lectures on the importance of not putting anything down the toilet!!!!! 10/30/07 Yay only 1 more day until Halloween!! Our house is buzzing with excitement. :) Halloween night at our house is so much fun, so I can't wait!! We are doing the infamous Haunted Garage again this year............last year, Steve and I were both traveling and so we just couldn't get it together, but it felt so weird not doing it that we swore we'd never skip another year. Steve and Aidan are going to work out in the garage today while I'm working at home and then tonight I'll help finish it up too. Woo hoo! We'll have a fire in our little chimney outside, warm spiced cider to drink and a thousand kids! There's nothing more fun than being here on Halloween. :) Next on my list of things to get working on is Aidan's 4th birthday party. I can NOT believe he's going to be 4!!! My little guy is getting so big. 11/05/07 Well, Halloween was a blast. Steve dressed up as "the undead rider" and I was Anna Nicole Smith, complete with pink balloon boobs. Fun times! Halloween night we indeed got the Haunted Garage going and one of our neighbors estimated that we had about 350 kids come through the 'hood. Oh, I love Halloween it is SO much fun!!!!! This was the first year that Aidan really "got" trick-or-treating and boy did he get it with a vengeance. Last year we couldn't get him to go up to anybody to say trick-or-treat (granted, he was sick) but this year, he couldn't get enough. It was so cute. We hung out at our place until some friends arrived to help with the haunted garage and passed out candy, but Aidan was chomping at the bit to go get his own candy, so we were out while it was still light out. I told him he needed to say "trick-or-treat" if he wanted to get some candy and that he needed to always say "thank you". He always remembered to say "trick-or-treat" but when I'd prompt him to say thank you by saying, "And what do you say?" after he got candy, he'd go, "Happy Halloween!" And before we could even get back to the sidewalk, he'd be yelling out, "We need MORE candy!! We need to go to that house right there!!!" And then he would SKIP to the next house it was hilarious! We walked through most of the neighborhood (there are quite a few side streets)! The other thing he'd do was when someone would hand him a piece of candy, he'd just stand there and look at them like, "That's it?" I had to tell him more than a few times that as soon as he got candy he just needed to say "thank you" and walk away - that waiting for more candy was rude!! Still, people thought he was really cute and I got a few people who said, "He's so polite!" which made me happy. One woman even said, "Oh, he's a doll. I wouldn't mind starting all over with him!" and then she called out to her neighbor across the street and said, "Did you see Thomas over here? Isn't he just too sweet?" I said thank you instead of telling her she was only half right. LOL I told Aidan last night that Christmas will be coming soon and I asked him if he's going to go tell Santa what he wants this year. He said, "Yes! I'm going to go say to him Santa, would you please like to bring me lots of toys? That would be very nice". I was cracking up. He just might go talk to Santa this year. He didn't seem the least bit concerned when I told him what all's involved. It's amazing how much he changes from year to year. Last year there was no motivating him to trick-or-treat or go see Santa.........this year I think he understands a lot more. When I tell him that the way to get candy is to go ask for it, he's on it! I told him yesterday that Santa won't know what to get him unless he tells him and he was all about it. Maybe if Ben goes first he'll do it? I guess we'll see. He actually seemed excited about it. 11/07/07 I am a person who loves new ideas. Innovation is king! So I was more than a little hyper when I saw Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah when I was on vacation in early October talking about her new cookbook. She takes kid-friendly food (chicken nuggets, spaghetti & meatballs, brownies) and hides veggies in them. Frickin genius is what it is! I'm still excited. I found some of the recipes on Oprah.com and have made almost all of them! I've made chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, brownies, oatmeal blueberry bars, turkey meatloaf........and it's ALL good and pretty easy to make! Granted, it's not as easy as say throwing a frozen pizza in the oven, but considering the nutritional benefits I'm more than willing to steam and puree veggies once every few weeks and do some real cooking. In the process, I've also found some great things for me oat flour and wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free flour and pizza dough. Now when I make brownies, I use oat flour and mix in spinach and carrot puree Aidan loves them and I can actually eat them without getting sick! Bonus all around!! 11/09/07 Aidan is getting very into Christmas. I've been telling him that Santa will be coming soon, but only for boys and girls who aren't being naughty! He really gets that this year for the first time. Oh, it's going to be SUCH a fun Christmas!! My in-laws told me that they mentioned putting up their Christmas tree (after being out shopping and seeing displays up), which was a mistake because then for the rest of the day Aidan kept asking if they could put the tree up. When they'd tell him that it wouldn't be put up until after Thanksgiving, he'd say "Thanksgiving!" like his saying it meant it was over and they could put the tree up ha! He is massively persistent. Once he gets an idea in his head, he will NOT give up on it! There is no distracting him either........once he's fixated on something, it has to happen NOW! The positive there is that if he carries this trait into adulthood, there will be no stopping him once he wants something and that's a good thing. He is such a hard worker and is so focused - I see so much potential in him. Yesterday was Mommy and Aidan day, but I was trying to get things done around the house (Steve had a client coming over and I didn't want the office room to be a huge mess, like it was) and I also had to log in and work for a few hours, so I felt bad that my poor kid was so neglected. We played a few games and other than that, he was playing on his own. I hate when I'm so busy that I can't just spend the day hanging out with him. That actually reminds me I don't think I've mentioned in these tons of entries that Steve is now self-employed. His business partner has been doing video production work full-time for about a year now and Steve has been at it since this summer. They listed their business in the Yellow Pages and it has really taken off. When we first talked about him doing this full-time, the biggest concern was whether or not they could generate enough business. Now he's actually worried that they will have so much work that they won't be able to keep up! We both agreed to go into this with a positive attitude (yep, we watched "The Secret") and focused all of our energy and thinking and prayers on a positive outcome. We didn't talk about failure or "what if's", we just thought positive thoughts and I did lots of praying for guidance and good direction in the process. I have to tell you, regardless of how the pieces came together, having a positive attitude and a zero tolerance for negative has really been uplifting. I tended to always think it was better to focus on the negative so that I "wasn't surprised" by something bad happening......and then the thought occurred to me aren't I ALWAYS surprised when something bad happens? Even if I'm in a negative frame of mind? I do. So why make my life, and the lives of those around me, miserable in this journey we call life? Why not be an encourager rather than a discourager? It suits me much better. It's so much easier to leave things up to God and to trust that he'll take care of us He always does! 11/17/07 I have a new niece!!! Last night at midnight I got to witness the miracle of birth for a 3rd time when my niece made her way into the world right around midnight. Her name is Lauren Jessica. Yay! A girl in the family! Everybody is so excited. There's something so amazing about being in the room when a baby is born. Now, the leading up to that is brutal and painfully gory to me, but it is worth it to see a baby taking its first breaths. Thank God I'll be having a c-section if I ever have another kid, that's all I can say!!! 12/03/07 I don't know if Aidan will talk to Santa or not. I told him that he'll have to tell Santa what he wants if he want to have presents to open on Christmas morning and he said he doesn't need to talk to him because he doesn't want anything. Not likely! When we were shopping this weekend at Walmart he was totally hyper about the wrapping paper had to hold it through the store and in the car on the way home. I asked him in the store what he's going to ask Santa for and he said, "wrapping paper!" So that's his official wish list wrapping paper. My sister reminded me that last year he said he wanted "red". Ha! He is such a goofy kid. 12/04/07 Aidan was being so sweet last night he wanted to lay in my bed for a few minutes before going to his bed. He got under the covers, snuggled up really close to me, squeezed me really tight around the neck said, "You are my very best friend, Mommy. I just love you SO much". It was SO sweet! Any time Steve or I even jokingly say we're tired or we've had a bad day or something, he'll say, "You just need some big hugs THAT will make you feel better". He's still such a sweet little guy........I'm so glad he is. 12/15/07 Aidan's 4th Bday party!! Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, so the super-cool party I had planned only had a few people in attendance (and his cousin Ben was the only other kid there). We took him to an indoor inflatables place, where he ran around until he was completely sweaty and deliriously happy. He absolutely LOVES that place! After that, we had pizza at the house and cupcakes that Aidan had helped me decorate. We went with the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme this year and the decorations alone thrilled him to pieces! He had a great time, regardless of the turnout. Aidan spent the night with my parents that same night because we had a 40th birthday party to attend. My sister took him with her when they left his birthday party. When I talked to her later, she said that while they were driving home Lauren started crying and Aidan said, "Auntie Kel, that baby is crying". She said they pulled over so that Mark could try to give her a pacifier, but she wouldn't keep it in her mouth. She said Lauren was continuing to cry and Aidan said, "Auntie Kel, that baby crying is making me sad" and she said when she looked in the backseat, he had a big frown on his face and had big tears in his eyes! She explained to him that crying is how babies communicate but said he was obviously bothered. She said, "He is so tender-hearted it was so sweet". Then yesterday, I felt SO bad because I was talking to her and she said that when Aidan went to bed at Mom & Dad's they were there watching the game. Ben was trying to go to sleep with him, but Aidan kept on talking to him and keeping him up so they had to separate them. She told me that Ben said, "Aidan keeps saying 'I miss my mommy I just want to go home' and so I can't sleep!" Ugh, talk about guilt hate the guilt! :( 12/16/07 My little guy is 4 Wow, four years amazing how fast it's gone by. I look at this potty-trained, walking, talking little boy and I'm amazed that he's not a baby anymore. I've seen him go from being so scared of strangers that he throws up to performing for the entire family at Christmas. I think about all of the phases the stops and starts along the way, the times I worried and worried that he might not be "normal" and I'm just amazed that we all got through it! For all of our imperfections, Steve and I have managed to raise a sweet, happy, compassionate, smart, funny little boy thus far. I have a few regrets, but not many, and that gives me immense peace. I feel good about the kind of parent I am and I feel good about my kid. I don't think it gets much better than that! I think I reached a turning point in my parenting when I tried a few things that just didn't work for us, and I had the confidence to abandon the ideal and go with what worked for Aidan. Reading The Highly Sensitive Child was a big turning point. Learning to automatically trust my instincts, regardless of how I might try to talk myself out of it, has been absolutely key. I've learned along the way that education makes things a lot easier, whether it be through a book or an online message board or other moms. At church this December, the messages were all about peace and how we underestimate how powerful and important peace is. It's times like these, when I do feel that peace, that I understand exactly what they're talking about. I am so very blessed to have such a sweet little soul in my life and I am thankful for him each and every day. 12/19/07 Last night we went to the Zoo for the festival of lights and had a really good time. It was REALLY pretty down there and they've got more than just white lights, which is what I thought it was. They had live reindeer there (Aidan LOVED them), pictures with Santa (although Santa was gone by the time we found where that was), the train is still running, they have luminaries floating on Swan Lake, they have a big huge lighted and decorated Christmas tree and different colored light displays to see. We didn't get over to the nativity but I would've liked to see that too. Before we left, we got some hot cinnamon almonds (they smelled SO good from the train!) and they were SO good!!! All in all, a good night. Call me crazy, but I really like getting bundled up and walking around looking at lights and listening to Christmas music! There is something very romantic and magical in being surrounded by a million little lights while holding hands and snuggling against the cold winter air that smells of cinnamon and hot chocolate! I definitely want to go back next year. NEXT ENTRY - Christmas til now! Heather and Aidan
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