What's the rush?

So, I've been asked a couple of times if we're going to potty train Nicholas before baby #2 joins the party.

The answer is a resounding, 'NO!'

Why would we do that? What's the rush?

Nicholas cannot yet communicate a preference between milk and juice and would sooner tantrum in the kitchen for a snack than use his words to let us know he's hungry. How could we possibly expect him to tell us he needs to potty on any sort of consistent basis?

Potty training just sounds like such a royal pain in the back side of parents. My (entirely untested and unresearched) theory is that the older he is and the clearer he can communicate with us, the smoother it will go.

Nicholas does love to flush the toilet and given we have not experienced bathroom privacy since he arrived home, he gets to flush it fairly regularly! And, just recently, he's begun to tell us what's in his diaper as we are changing him. Sometimes he just lays there and in his most sing-songy voice melodies, 'pee!'. Othertimes, he'll shamelessly chant, 'Oooo! Pee poo!'

Clearly these are signs of interest on his part. But, how can we possibly sacrifice such remarkable entertainment?

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I love Spring

We've had a string of beautiful days here. This evening, Nicholas took a spin on his new tricycle!

Doesn't he look Hoosierific in his IU garb and Colts hat?

Diggin' those Spidey sun glasses :)
After the ride, they fed some bread to the ducks out back.

I really love Spring!

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Brotherly love

While I was folding and hanging Nicholas' laundry today shortly before naptime, he walked in and grabbed his quilt and a blankey off the bed. I walked into the living room ~5 minutes later and found my boys snuggling on the couch.

Sweet boys!

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First pony ride

Today we spent the day at my parents. Part of our motivation for the visit was a little, toddler-friendly carnival sponsored by their YMCA. They had 75cent pony rides! Too fun...

Nicholas is waiting patiently for his turn.

Mr. Independent is NOT strapped onto this horse!

Our little cowboy! He LOVED it and had to ride again.

He also got to spend some time in the bounce house showing off his coordination...

And, he won 2 matchbox cars at the duck game!

We had a great day. All said, it was a remarkably eventful weekend for us - lots of activity, which Nicholas handled like a trooper.

Mama, however, needs a nap!

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Zoo visit

Today we met our Ekat buddies, O&C, at the zoo. It was a first visit for all 3 boys. We had a great time and plan to go back lots!

Daddy & Nicholas checking out the sea otters

This is Linus, a sea lion. He waved at us and said, 'Ark, ark, ark'! Nicholas waved back :)

The tiger was more interesting to look at then Daddy behind the camera!

Darn! Mama's not too interesting behind the camera either :)

Nicholas fed the giraffe some sweet potato!

Nicholas is checking out a rhino cooling off in a mud bath!

He LOVED the water park. We'll have to get the sprinkler out for him this summer!

When we got home, Max was just chilling in front of the tube. I think he missed Matt and me, but there's always a slight glimmer of disappointment in his eyes when Nicholas walks in the house and says, "Hewoe, Mats!"

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1st month as a big boy

We started Nicholas' big-boy-bed transition four weeks ago today...


Throughout the first week, Matt and I began to seriously consider moving him into our room permenantly - trusting that he would seek independence / privacy by early adolescence at the latest. It was taking him 2+ hours to calm down and crash for the night - with frequent peeks out his door looking for us (which I hate to admit really were frighteningly cute - for the first 10-15 minutes).


After about 5-6 nights of having to actively conjure our every ounce of combined patience with the small one, we decided to do a little PI appropriate spin on the Super Nanny bedtime technique. It doesn't feel appropriate to outright ignore his efforts to seek us out (inappropriate though his efforts may be) while we're so actively engaged in teaching him to seek us out! So, in the spirit of prevention, we started sitting in the room with him when we first put him down. AND, the PI version came into play in our interactions with him. "It's okay to close your eyes, sweet baby. Mama is right here. Lay down, Nicholas. It's time to nigh nigh." And, so on and so forth.


This seemed to help - though it still took quite some time for him to settle into his big boy bed each night. Sometimes he would respond verbally: Nigh nigh. Eyes clo. Other times he would respond non-verbally: closing his eyes, rocking. And, occassionally he would spontaneously communicate that he was really getting it: No pan. Ah betta.


Then for a little while, he was in and out of new places to sleep for 10 days with our trek to BC and my mom's. I really thought that time frame would seriously sabbotage our efforts, but happily - I was wrong! For the past week+, Nicholas has been a rock star at bedtime. He's either going to sleep quickly or playing quietly in his room (which is fine with us). One night Matt checked on him before we went to bed and he was asleep on the floor!


We have noticed that since transitioning him to his own room he has struggled with the scream dreams a bit - nothing like before, but they did make a reappearance which leaves us wondering if this will be a standard response to transitions until he's significantly more verbal. I really hate the scream dreams. Each passing one just breaks my heart a little more deeply.


And, probably 5/7 mornings Nicholas ends up in our room. Yesterday, for example, we heard him playing in his bed ~4:30a. So, Matt brought him into our room and he went back to sleep for three hours in the pack & play until we all got up.


All said, I think it's going well. I have to admit the first couple of nights he was in his own room, I didn't sleep well - just layed there listening to him breathe on the monitor.

I missed him!


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Happy Easter!

Happy-first-Easter-home, Nicholas!

We've had a really nice day. We went to mass early. Nicholas got a Russian "Christ is Risen" greeting from Fr. Vince and then, upon Fr. V's prompting, accurately demonstrated where his 'headbone' is! We went out for breakfast after mass and headed home.

The Easter bunny left a basket and 6 jumbo eggs for the todder hunt! Here are some pictures of our day:

Ready for church

It's fun to be silly!

Basket from 'the bunny'

Following is a play-by-play of the egg hunt!

The jumbo eggs were filled with all of his favorites: Elmo, Cookie, Ernie and Grover

His first tatoo

In the spirit of full disclosure, the egg hunt happened ~4p - and, yes, we were all back in our pjs for the long afternoon slumber that preceeded it!

Nicholas' Easter loot (from 'the bunny', his GPs & other N fans) included a Pooh movie, a gift card from DQ, a bunny, a chick, egg tatoos, a big beach ball, $6, a new book, some marshmallows, an Elmo doll & book, stickers, and assorted candy. Good stuff, indeed!

Max felt his Easter was a little less exciting than Nicholas'...

Here is hopeful Max: Do you have anything for me? What's for me? What's for me?

Manipulative Max: I know you can't resist my pitiful look. Really, didn't you get me anything fun or tasty?

Resigned / disappointed Max: Sigh! I cannot believe how much better his gig is than mine. Can I at least have some lovies?

Lovies he got!

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Visit with Nana & Papa

Last week, Nicholas and I spent 3 nights at my parents. The first two nights, my dad was in Augusta enjoying the Master's golf tournament with my brothers - he was home the 3rd night.

We had such fun and here are some pictures to prove it:

Running around the yard with Nana

Running to Mama - I had to drop the camera - never want to miss a Nicholas-initiated squeeze!

Swinging on the neighbor's swing set

First tricycle ride

Getting a push from Nana

Picasso with the sidewalk chalk

Swinging with Nana at the park

Digging with Papa at the park

On the slide

Flying the airplane

Down the slide again and again

We went back to celebrate Easter with my family on Saturday. Nicholas experienced his first Easter egg hunt (Daddy was a big help!).

And, here he is eating the loot he found in one of his purple eggs! Yummy!

When we got home last evening, Nicholas took some time to unwind and catch up on the news.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of our swim - because I was in the water, too. It was great fun! Nicholas loves the water.

All in all it's been a big week for our little man - lots of transitions and running around. He's handled it like a champ. There were certainly struggles with overstim. At my parents' he spent the first 24 hours obsessively fixated on the lights and fans. After a while he caught on to the mantra and started shaking his head saying, "No pan. Ah betta." (No fan. All better.)

One funny Nicholas story...Matt and I have been working with him to say the 'b' in banana. So, we'll empahsize it like this, "b-b-b-banana" and he'll follow suit. We went to mass with Nana while we were in town and mid-silence (always) Nicholas pointed to the ceiling fan and shouted, "b-b-b-pan!"

He is perpetually entertaining!

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Arleta is blogging

Arleta just let me know that she is blogging for Perspective's Press a few times / week. I know it's not the same as a personal treatment plan, but I'm guessing she'll be posting some information that's useful to all.

If you're interested, you can follow her blog here.

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Long weekend away

We spent a long weekend at 'our' cabin in Brown County. Though we were originally slated to come home today, we ended up trekking home last night due to thunderstorms, a tornado watch and a power outage at the cabin. We were bummed to cut our weekend short, but were also glad to be home. This morning we woke up to snow flurries!

We had a nice, relaxing weekend. Here is some Nicholas cuteness from the weekend:

Nicholas and Matt enjoyed 'swimming' in the hot tub. I was advised to steer clear this trip, so I just put my feet in! Nicholas LOVES the water. I think I'm going to look for a swim class he and I can take together this summer.
Nicholas got a new (to him) toy when we arrived at the cabin. Matt and I are still shopping in our basement fairly regularly. This Little People city was a huge hit and served up some great entertainment for our little man.
Here we are relaxing - well, Nicholas is relaxing and snacking - I'm waking up! Unfortunately, I felt pretty raunchy the majority of the weekend. Fortunately, my one-true-love is incredibly supportive and doesn't balk at my drastic need for 'down time' and naps these days!
Nicholas and I were ready for church Saturday evening - waiting for Daddy. He was pretty excited to discover pockets in his sweater!
I brought our 2008 photos and updated our photo albums while we were there. Interestingly, there weren't a ton from the first half of last year! But, it was SO reminiscent to filter through pictures of trips 2 & 3 as well as our pictures from Nicholas' first months home. Can you believe we're creeping up on 9 months home with him? It's fun to still be experiencing firsts. This has been our first Easter season with him and we'll be celebrating our first mother's and father's days this year! Good stuff.

Oh, k8 - I read the first Thursday Next novel over the weekend and loved it! Thanks for the recommendation - I'm already well underway with book 2 and Matt is digging in, too.

Tomorrow after I get home from work, Nicholas and I are traipsing down to my parents' for a few nights - giving Matt some much needed introvert-recharge time! More fun to be had. Nicholas, Nana and I are going swimming (in an actual pool, not a hot tub!), doing some shopping, and some Easter weekend prep. It's always good to be with my mom!

I will try to upload some video one of these days. I've been slacking!

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Seeking attention

Nicholas was reading a book in his stuffed chair earlier this morning while I was skitting around the kitchen 'getting stuff done' (which is an entirely relative experience with a 2-year-old in the house). Suddenly, I heard him urgently shouting, "C'MERE! C'MERE! C'MERE! C'MERE!"

As I walked toward him, he pointed to a cow in his book and said, "Moooo!"

He was so tickled with himself.

'C'mere' is apparently Nicholas' version of 'Hey you, give me some attention already!'

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