Everything since August 6th...

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

School started. Was good. Took a 6th period. Am going crazy.

Took up running, sorta (been 5 times). Can run 1.25 miles and have now run more in the last 3 weeks than I ever did in high school PE.

Kids love school, especially Penelope. She has 16 boys and 3 girls in her class. Makes me thankful that I teach high school.

Griffin goes on his first field trip in a few weeks. I get to go (hooray for fortuitous scheduling and random Mondays off!).

Penelope went to my 1.5 hour yoga class with me and did everything except for Triangle pose. Everyone loved her and she's been invited back for other classes. She adores this. She is also surprisingly inflexible, I blame Bryan.

Griffin is now 90% night time potty trained. Huzzah!

I got a full back tattoo (well, the outline is done). It is made of awesome and I will post many pics as color is added.

I'm co-advising the Mock Trail team this year. It's fantastic, but also means Tuesdays I'm on campus from 7am until 7pm. No joke. See note re: "crazy" above.

We've been to a wedding and a birthday party with an Elvis impersonator (those things did not happen in the same weekend).

Bryan's job is going well, he loves it.

His hockey team plays tomorrow for the championship.

I turned 32 and didn't freak out (actually, it was fun. And so far 32 is infinitely better than 22 & 12 combined. Although at 2 I was in New York, so we'll see if 32 makes it to the top of my "years ending in a 2").

And now, goodnight. It is time to sleep. So I will sleep with my pet Zeep. Today was good, today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. Everyday from here to there, funny things are everywhere.

(P.S. if you don't get my two allusions, then I'm not sure we can be friends anymore).

Beaches, Boardwalk, and Elephants

You have no idea how disappointed I am that I couldn't fully alliterate this blog title. I sat here for a good three minutes trying to figure out how to make the alliteration work. I could have said "bears" since we did see bears at the Monterey Zoo today, but when I'm 90 years old, the only thing I'm going to remember is feeding the elephants so they get first billing.

Still, I wish I could have alliterated it.

Anyway, elephants!

Well, lets go in chronological order. We'll start with beaches.

A few weeks ago, Judit & I took the kids & the dog to the beach to play. It was chilly (Asilomar is rarely very warm), but we had a lot of fun. By the time we left no one could feel their toes.

They like to hold hands and run away from the waves

Harley-Quinn LOVES the beach. She'd play in the waves until her heart gave out if we let her...

Playing in the waves!

Remember, this water is COLD

This one just amuses me

Watching the waves

Not long after the beach trip, we went to a series of parties for friends. It was a fun, but exhausting, weekend. I tried to get some good pictures, but it was hard to take pictures AND socialize. So I just captured a few that I really like.

See, you CAN take a selfie with a fancy camera!

Penelope took this one :)

Griffin took this one of our friends Patrice & Sascha

Having fun dancing with her new BFF

After the weekend of parties, I left for Pasadena for a few days. While the conference I attended was both informative and productive, I was very happy to be home. I get a few days of vacation before the school year gears up and we're taking advantage of the time.

We went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk this weekend (as well as the Aquarium), but I didn't take as many pictures. Penelope went on a dozen rides and Griffin finally discovered his bravery shortly before we left.

Today we ran some errands and then went to the Monterey Zoo, where we got to get up and close with some animals AND we got to FEED ELEPHANTS. This was the coolest thing I've done in ages. You can actually take tours there where you can bathe the elephants. I desperately want to give an elephant a bath. Desperately.

Sissy feeding the elephant. She was SO brave. Other little kids, her brother included, were terrified, but not my little Miss!

Griffin didn't want to get near the elephant, but consented to be held while I fed her.

Judit & the elephant!

The whole tour was neat, but the elephant part was awesome.

In other news, Griffin is pretty much night potty-trained. We haven't had an accident in almost a week and he's really proud of himself for not wetting the bed. I'm pleased as well, hooray for less laundry!

We're still working on sleeping all night in his own bed. This is going to be harder because he really does hate to sleep alone and he is such a mama's boy. We'll keep up with the sticker chart and hopefully he'll be in his bed mostly full-time by the end of the year. It would be nice if it happened sooner, but neither one of us is ready to really push it (sticker chart aside). This too shall pass and one day I'll look back fondly on all the extra snuggling.

Tomorrow I have some work to do, but the agenda for the week includes a trip to SF, swimming, beach time, and a baseball game!

At a Fork

Not a literal fork, mind you. But in a lot of ways we (as a family) are at a big turning point. Some of it hinges around job stuff, some of it hinges around milestones, and all of it is happening both too quickly and too slowly.

The kids are first.

With Griffin day potty trained and 70% night trained, we're completely done with diapers and pull ups. It's all undies all the time. This makes our changing table pretty useless; right now it's housing a rather large pile of stuff I should deal with but don't want to.

Our baby isn't a baby. He's not even a toddler. He's a pre-schooler. He's writing his name, speaking in large and complex sentences, and becoming increasingly independent. This is a huge transition that really snuck up on me. I feel like one minute I had a baby and now I have two kids.

Griffin wearing my wedding ring. It fits his finger. I must have skeletal fingers...

Griffin is even spending less and less time in our bed. Which is mostly good because he's enormous and is a bed hog.

At his last pediatrician appointment he was 3 feet 5.25 inches. All his 3T stuff is pitifully short and his 4T pants are starting to look more like highwaters every day. I'm going to have to start buying him 5T clothes. He just turned 3.

Sissy isn't any better. Child is outgrowing her 6s and we'll have to buy 7s for the fall. SEVENS. She's FOUR.

Does she look 4 to you???

This week she started acting camp after her 3rd dance recital (good gracious, really - 3?!). And she has a performance on Friday. After this camp, she can start participating in some of the children's theater's normal productions. Based on how much she loves camp thusfar, that's going to be a reality for us. Soon I'll have to schlep her to regular rehearsals in addition to ballet and possibly basketball (she asked to join a basketball team, I think she's got another year before she's eligible).

Besties.

If all goes as planned she'll start Transitional Kinder in the fall. She's getting taller by the second (and has regular growing pains, usually it's "mama, my leg bones hurt") and isn't gaining much weight - so she's pretty gangly.  I had to take in her recital costume because it was way too wide and I have a feeling my sewing machine is going to get lots of use as she gets older.

I am glad she's busy - making friends, having fun, exploring... I wish there were as many opportunities for the Bubs, but 3 is a hard age for extra curriculars. This summer I'll try and sign them up for swim lessons, but he won't get to do too much until soccer starts up.

I love this picture. They're sharing wearing Bryan's backpack. They really do share everything.

My babies becoming kids makes my ovaries ache. And while I really, really, really want to try for #3 ASAP (as in yesterday), we're really not in a place to make that happen. Another baby would also mean another 4+ years of childcare (we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now) in addition to all the other challenges that come with newborns and babies.

There are also a lot of really wonderful things that come with babies. Both Penelope and Griffin have asked for more siblings and babies are loves - I miss the loves. We just have to decide if all the benefits of expanding our family outwiegh the challenges and then: when could we reasonably add to the family without sacrificing more than we can afford?

Thank goodness for reliable birth control (thanks Planned Parenthood!!!!!)

There's a lot I want to do with my career. I'm taking some of the steps toward that now. Having another baby wouldn't prevent those career moves, but they would significantly delay them. I'm young, so I have time to become Empress of the World. But I still haven't decided if my career timeline or my family planning timeline triumphs.

There is always adoption - and we haven't ruled that out. If that's the route we decide to go, then we'll have to wait a few more years. We need a slightly larger place and it would be nice to have the big kids in school full time before we add a toddler into our lives (because if we adopt we'd like to adopt a toddler or a pre-schooler).

So there are options. And there's time. But if you know me or if you've been reading my blog regularly then you know that I'm not the "wait and see" type. I have to be for this, but it is sometimes frustrating to not know what I want and then not know the best way to get there.

The other fork in our road is job related, but not mine. Nothing is set in stone so I don't want to jinx anything (yes Neil deGrasse Tyson, I know I know), but Bryan does have some possible opportunities on the horizon that are both exciting (because yea change!) and scary (because boo change!). They are 90% exciting. The 10% scary has more to do with not knowing exactly how things are going to pan out rather than scary about the specific change.

I COULD be more vague, but I'll spare you.

Suffice it to say, this will be an eventful summer.

Speaking of which, I have 80% of tomorrow's summer lesson plan completed. Time to finish the rest.

Potty time! Excellent!

You have to say that with the Bill & Ted accent. If you don't know what I'm talking about then we can't be friends anymore.

I had a rather whiny post written about work & stress. But it was boring. I bored myself writing it.

So now we'll talk about potty training, because that's what everyone likes to read about, yes?

Sir Bubs A Lot has been day trained since November. Which has been great because diapers are expensive and we've had a kid in diapers since 2008. So I was quite happy when he trained earlier than his big sis and with relatively little fuss. His daycare provider dealt with more mess than we did - and they were so amazing and helping us get him trained in less than 2 weeks.

That isn't to say we're completely accident free. He is, after all, only 3. But we rarely have accidents during the day. I cannot remember the last time he wet himself in the course of a normal day.

Night time has been another beast. He's still in diapers at night - for now. Pen was night trained 2 months after she turned 3, and Bubs just turned 3 - so we haven't pushed it.

But for the last week he's woken up dry 5 out of the 7 nights and we have less than a week's worth of diapers left. So the decision has to be made soon. Do we buy more diapers and wait until he's dry for a few weeks in a row? Or do we celebrate his last diaper with this box and vow to never buy a new one?

I haven't posted in almost a month...

And so much has happened!

My parents moved from Sacramento to Scotts Valley (they are now 45 minutes away instead of 3+ hours), and before the move my mom lived with for a month until my parents found housing in the Santa Cruz area. It was nice having her here, the kids got to kiss Granny goodnight each night and Griffin really enjoying going downstairs in the morning to hang out with Granny as she got ready for work.

In the month of October Griffin reached 100% day-potty-training (wait, did I already cover this?) and we haven't had an accident in quite awhile. I must say, it is GLORIOUS not to have to change diapers. It is also wonderful to keep only an emergency pair of undies and pants in the car instead of carting around the diaper bag. In the last few months we've gotten rid of the diapers, diaper bag, and strollers, and it's been bittersweet. Mostly sweet.

G won't let us eliminate all vestages of baby-hood however. He's still in night-diapers and still wakes up once a night and crawls into bed with us. He quickly falls back asleep, although he HAS taken to trying to suffoate Bryan every night by sleeping on his head. It's something we need to work on, but neither one of us has the energy to tackle it yet. Maybe over Winter Break.

They're both doing well at daycare, Penelope keeps asking to go to school - and we're hoping to be able to send her to pre-school next year, but it depends on a host of factors. The major factor is, of course, cost. But we'll keep trying to figure out how to swing it. The pre-school I want to send her to is a Spanish immersion school, and I think she'd do well.

She's still dancing and Griffin is still in gymnastics. I do have some video of her last ballet class, but I need to youtube it so I can post it here. It's on my phone.

Squish is also making some pretty amazing drawings. She's better at coloring inside the lines than my Freshmen students (seriously) and her free-hand drawing is both creative and colorful. She'll literally spend hours at the kitchen table coloring/drawing.

As for me, work is good but hectic. I've taken on a lot this year and while I love a lot of what I'm doing, it takes a significant amount of time to get it all done. This year has also been my year for students-in-crisis. I've made 2 mandated reporter calls already and have spent a fair amount of time drying the eyes of some of my students. I'm glad they feel they can come to me, even if I loathe paperwork. That's what I'm here for afterall...

Ok, time to get back to lesson planning. I hope to be able to upload the videos I have later this week and post them.

Potty Training, part deux

I can't remember the last time I talked about potty training. I think it was last month... So I figured we're due for an update.

Penelope has been fully trained for almost a year. She started right before her 3rd birthday and was day trained in a few weeks, night trained 2 months after her birthday. I can't remember the last time she had an accident, but the child has a bladder like a steel trap. I'm pretty sure her bladder is larger than mine.

Griffin decided to start PT'ing midway through last month. Or rather, I sort of decided to start PT'ing. He had (yet another) rash and so we did undies at night, which turned into undies during the day. (Side note: while both kids did get the occasional rash when we were using cloth diapers, Griffin's rashes became much more frequent AND much more severe in disposables. Also? Diaper companies are increasing the size/visibility of the "dump the poop in disposables" notice on diaper boxes. Just another plug for cloth.)

The first week of PT'ing was a laundry-fest. We (meaning Bryan) did a load of laundry every day... the second week was much better. Third week we were having days with NO accidents (woot!) and this week has been quite good. The biggest challenge was getting him to poop on the potty - yesterday he finally told me that his "butt hurt" and then pooped on the potty. So I'm hopeful that in the next few weeks I'll be able to say that we're fully day-trained - possibly right around the time of his 2 1/2 "birthday" on the 16th.

He did wake up dry this morning, but I won't hold my breath for night-training anytime soon. Maybe after his 3rd birthday. But I am so happy to be done with diapers during the day.

This is one of the remnants of childhood that I will not be sad to see pass. Potty training and teething are two things that I can leave happily behind me, even as I mourn for other baby-related stages we won't see again.

Stuff I posted on Facebook but feel the need to document on the blog

The other day I talked about the possibility of starting potty training for the Bubs.

Well, his rash necessitated a naked/undies night which necessitated a lot of jellybean bribing in order to keep the carpet dry. And that lead to an undies morning - which lead to an undies day - and the whole thing snowballed into a now-I-guess-we're-really-potty-training-someone-get-me-a-drink.

He did throw an epic tantrum this morning when deciding whether or not he was going to wear undies or a diaper. Hopefully we don't have anymore like that. But now that we've started we're not going to stop...

There were at least 3 accidents at daycare today, he still doesn't tell us when he has to go. BUT he was dry from 3pm until bedtime and went potty every time we asked him, which is good. He gets a jellybean each time he goes, and I am soooooo not above bribing.

I would LOVE it if he was PT'ed (at least day-trained) before his 2 1/2 "birthday." I'm not holding my breath, but that does give us a month - which is doable.

In other news, Penelope has a new imaginary friend. His name is Phineas, he's 3, and a robot (he can remove his head, pretty cool, huh?). Pen holds his hand around the house, talks to him all the time, they sleep in the same bed, he eats right next to her, and she likes to narrate his every move. It's cute, although slightly obnoxious because Phineas is very needy.

Oh, the Squish is also sick, poor thing. Just a runny nosy and fever (for the most part) so hopefully the OTC meds we gave her tonight will mean she wakes up feeling better. She's a much better patient than the Bubs, so hopefully he doesn't get it.

And now for work. I'd much rather be sleeping, but duty calls. I have sub plans and a Rite of Passage assessment to write. Fun fun fun!

Potty Training

Other than teething, I don't think there's anything I hate more than potty training. And I may hate PT'ing more than teething, but they don't happen at the same time so it's difficult to truly gauge my level of hatred for each.

As I navigate the ever-deeper waters of parenting, I may very well find something I despise more than teething AND potty training. These things just tend to escalate - otherwise no one would ever become parents. Imagine recovering from childbirth only to find your newborn sneaking out of the bassinet to go to a cast party dressed as a slutty Kardashian sister (note: all of them dress like hookers... this is where the feminist in me recoils, but being a feminist doesn't mean I have to condone silly, vapid people dressing like sexy halloween kittens in May). The human race would never survive.

Anyway. Griffin has a rash. Another rash. He is the rashy-est (rashiest? rashyist?) child I have ever birthed. Which, comparatively doesn't really mean much, BUT he's rather rashy for any child. So I guess that would have been a better way to start.

He's just very rashy.
(note: spell-check doesn't recognize that word. Spell-check was invented by the childless)

His skin has always been sensitive, and his rashes have gotten worse since he's been in disposables, but cloth isn't an option with our daycare and since he's almost 2 1/2, part of me is seriously considering potty training - especially since he asks to wear underwear (although he doesn't tell us when he has to go, only after and only sometimes).

Only I loathe potty training.

At this point it's almost an irrational loathing, like the one I have for pregnancy... because Penelope was actually rather easy to PT (took a few weeks, handful of accidents, night-trained in 2 months) and both my pregnancies were a breeze compared to what many (most) other women experience (no serious morning sickness, no cramping, very little heartburn, only one episode of sciatica pain, few stretchmarks, short labors). So one would think that with relatively positive experiences with both pregnancy and potty training, that I should be rather positive when it comes to both.

One would think that, and one would be wrong. Very, very wrong.

I honestly have no idea where my intense feelings regarding potty training come from. Maybe I've repressed memories from my childhood that are currently haunting me in adulthood (childhood trauma is also why I refuse to iron, hate blow drying my hair, and refuse to vacuum stairs. And by "trauma" I mean "stubbornness"). But I'm pretty sure my potty training was relatively uneventful. I mean, I'm assuming my parents would have made some comment about it if it had been horrific.

So I'm left to speculate about the origins of my fierce hatred for all thing potty training.

And I do SO enjoy speculating.

Although that will have to wait for another post, since I wanted to discuss Bubby.

So blog-world... if you had an almost 2 1/2 year old who asks to wear undies, doesn't tell you before he pees, gets horrible diaper rash every few months, and who has an older sister who potty trained at 3 - would you start serious potty training?

BIG boy!

My son is... silly.

He's also sorta-kinda-potty training. He pees on the potty when we have him sit there, but has only asked to pee twice. No poop in the potty yet. I was going to hold off on potty training, but he's been insisting on wearing underwear and he's been waking up dry from naps & overnight on occasion. So we're sorta-kinda staring. His daycare will go gun-ho after school is out. I'm hopeful that he'll be fully day potty trained by the end of summer. I don't expect night-time training for awhile longer.

Although if it doesn't happen and we go back to diapers I won't be upset. He's only just two. Poe didn't PT until 3 and I think that's the average age. So I'd be ecstatic if he trained sooner.

Regardless, he love his undies. And they're super cute.

Potty training

I have in previous posts mentioned how much I loathe potty training. I don't hate it as much as teething, but it comes in at a pretty close second.

The reason I despise the PT is mostly because I hate the constant questioning and bribing. We don't have a backyard that's kid friendly AND it's freezing outside, so naked training is out. And she refuses to be naked anyway unless she's taking a bath. She wants to wear underwear until you pull it out and then she cries that she wants a diaper "like Bubby". She never says she has to pee so you end up asking every 20 minutes. Exhausting. And confining, we end up spending lots of time indoors close to a potty and I get cabin fever LIKE CRAZY.

So we hadn't really done much in the way of potty training except having her sit on the potty before bathtime.

Until now. Friday when I picked her up from daycare, she told Miss Monica and I that she was ready for underwear and that she wasn't going to wear diapers anymore "because I'm a big girl, not a baby like Bubba."

So we jumped in. Saturday morning we pulled out the pull-ups (after a mini tantrum when she demanded a diaper because she was "a baby, mama, I'm just a baby" - this ended with the promise of stickers). I think I already blogged about Saturday's accidents (just 2) and today we just had 1 (pee) which means she pooped on the potty. Not willingly, I saw her "assume the position" and so I carried her into the bathroom while she protested. But she did it and was very proud of herself.

She's going to hate me for writing this post when she's older.

I would really love for her to be able to *tell* me when she has to go. Hopefully that will happen by her birthday... hopefully.

Potty Training... do I have to?

So we've started potty training. I've been meaning to do this for months, but Penny hasn't really been ready. And although I keep saying that I am ready, I'm really not. Because it's a lot of work. Like, a lot.

Saturday she peed on the potty 4 times, and it took a considerable amount of coaxing. Sunday, 6 times. Great, right? Yeah! But today? 0. Now, I know each day won't be a major success, but today has been frustrating. And I just don't have the energy (or the short term memory) to have her sit on the potty every hour to see if she will pee.

I really want her to be potty trained - at least day trained - and at least for pee.

But this is going to be exhausting. Mostly for me, and I'm not sure if I'm up for the task (although I'm 99% sure Penelope is). I guess parenting is less about what is best for me and what is best for my kids. But darn it, I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate potty training.

/whine

Ugh. This afternoon we'll buy some pull ups and go from there. I just need to suck it up and get this done.

If Bryan and I ever have more kids, I am 80% sure we'll adopt, and 100% sure the child will be old enough to be potty trained already.

Peer pressure

When the kids are older, I hope they avoid caving to peer pressure on a whole host of issues: drugs, sex, listening to shirty music, etc. But right I wouldn't mind if Penelope was heavily influenced by her peers in one specific area: potty training.

I haven't started any so of serious potty training because she really hasn't been ready and I don't want it to be a battle. I've. Tried a multitude of techniques to get her interested in the potty but they haven't worked. I'm certainly not giving up, but I'm also not pushing it. It's just not worth the headache right now.

I do want her to potty train, so we constantly ask her about the potty, but no matter how we approach it this is her response:

"no thank you, I want my diaper"

Lately I've been telling her about all of her friends that use the potty. My hope is that it will convince her to at least try. Most of her friends still wear diapers, but there are a few who are fully potty trained. Today we're going to hang out with two of them. I told Pen about it and this was our conversation:

Me: Hey Pen, guess who we're going to see today to the zoo? Linden and Sophia!
Pen: Sophia? Yea mommy!
M: You know what, both Linden and Sophia go pee and poop on the potty. Isn't that neat?
P: Really neat, they go pee-pee obj t he potty! Good job!
M: Let's try and go pee-pee on the potty, like a big girl. Like Linden and Sophia.
P: No thanks mommy, I like my diaper.

Fail.

One day she will potty train. Sooner rather than later. But not today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Home

One about the kids

First off, I wanted to thank everyone who commented or sent me messages/e-mails after my last post. It really does help to know that there are a people out there that have been in my shoes (or at least similar shoes) and that there are people who I can call if I need to talk or need a break. I feel better - getting it out there and publicly acknowledging the magnitude of my anxiety has helped tremendously. So thank you.

Now, about the kids :)

Griffin crawled yesterday! Well, it was a crawl. Singular. But hey, it's forward progress (haha, I'm so punny). I'm still hoping he'll be mobile by Christmas. For the last two nights he's also been sleeping better. Two nights ago he slept from 11-3:30 (in bed with us) and last night he didn't need an extra bottle. Bryan got up with him at 7:10 and I got to sleep in until almost 8:30. It was excellent.

Poe is stringing 5-6 words together and repeats EVERYTHING. I love her talking, especially the way she says her name "Pah-pooh-pea". She used to call herself "Penny" but now she just calls herself Penelope. I will endeavor to get it on video.

She has also now peed on the potty twice! And she loves watching her "Elmo's Potty Time" video so here's hoping "peer pressure" (from Elmo & crew) will help get her day-time trained by X-mas. We'll see.

She can also read. Well, sort of. When she sees "Penny" written she points to it and says "Pah-pooh-pea"! I'm counting it :)

I have more, but I also have pictures. So here they are... hopefully I'll find more time this weekend to blog.




Penny got this horse at a white elephant gift exchange with the mommy group... Jessica W made it and Poe LOVES it. So cute!


Poe & Jackson

Peepee on the potty!

Tuesday Penelope peed on the potty for the first time. Hooray!

Potty Time

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am ready to potty train Penelope.

She may or may not be ready to BE potty trained.

I bought a book called "How To Potty Train Your Child In One Day" and read the first two chapters. Meh. Some of the info is great, and I may use portions of the techniques, but the author advocates a "potty party" complete with cake and presents. I don't really have the time for that - plus, while I want Penelope to know that going to the bathroom on the toilet is good, I'm not sure I want to make it a holiday. I want to normalize it, not turn it into an event.

The author also says some very inaccurate and obnoxious things about cloth diapers, so I'm just ticked off enough to not want to use her technique. This may make me silly and/or petty, but whatever. You publish a book containing inaccurate BS and I'm going to look at the rest of what you have to say with a different lens. It is what it is.

I did, however, take the potty quiz in the book to determine in Poe is ready for the whole experience. She scored a 7/10 which the author says is close, but not quite ready. So we're going to wait until the winter break and see what she scores then.

In the meantime, she and I have watched some videos of Elmo singing about potty training and I've ordered her some Sesame Street books about using the "big kid potty". If Elmo does something then Penelope wants to do it as well.

It's already made an impression on her. Last night after I stripped her down for bathtime she walked into the bathroom and asked to sit on the potty. She also wanted ME to sit on the potty, so we sat (I was fully clothed, she was naked) together for about 5 minutes. I praised her (she didn't pee, just sat naked, which is a big step) and talked about how big girls use the potty. She told me "Elmo pee-pee potty mama. Cookie poo-poo potty" and was very proud of herself.

Of course, I think half the reason she sat on the potty for so long was because she didn't want to take a bath. She used to LOVE baths, but it's become a bit of a headache recently. She hates getting her hair washed/wet and cries about the whole experience. Plus, Griffin is a splash-o-matic and while Poe sometimes finds his antics amusing, she also hates getting water splashed in her face.

Oh well, whatever the real motivation was for her potty time last night, the fact that she sat (naked) on the potty for an extended period of time is a good sign.

I would love, love, love if she was potty trained by x-mas. Love. I don't expect daytime AND nighttime training to happen that quickly. If I can get daytime training done by the holidays I will be ecstatic.

Side note: Last night G went to bed at 9-ish, woke up at 12:15 and nursed, woke up at 3-ish for a bottle, and was still asleep IN HIS CRIB when I left the house at 6:50. This is awesome.

An updatey type thing

Both kids are asleep and I just submitted the worst paper I've ever written so I have a little time to update. I've been meaning to write a couple of posts about a variety of things but it's so hard to find the time (I must sound like a broken record at this point).

So let me sum-up.

I'm madly in love with both of my children even though they've started conspiring to drive me crazy. Penelope's tantrums are more frequent, which isn't unusual considering her age. And really, they're not that bad... but MAN she can scream.

She can also be really sweet. She loves to share her toys with Griffin. When she pretends to make tea she'll give him some (which means she shoves the toy cup in his face, but at least she's sharing). She also loves to bury him under her stuffed animals, give him books, and give him lots of kisses. She calls him "bubba" and "dude" and will greet him with "hi dude" on occasion. It's adorable.

And he loves her too. His face lights up when he sees her - he's got a great grin and they'll spend a bit of time staring and laughing at each other. We're still waiting for his first belly laugh, but that should be soon. Penn had hers around 3 months and we're coming up on that mark for G.

Other "new" words... sign: giraffe, elephant, bird, cookie. verbal: dude, cheese, ice, teeth, meow, woof (which sounds like "ffffffff")

We've been thinking about potty training lately. Penny has asked for a diaper change on a couple of occasions and lately she's taken to coming into the bathroom when I pee and sitting on her potty chair. I have a little too much to do during the day to focus on "real" potty training, but we'll work on that this summer. We might do the naked-outdoors-for-the-weekend trick and see what happens.

Pen's moved up to the tub for her baths... she was in a duckie tub-thing that fit inside of the bathtub but she outgrew it awhile ago and it started leaking air (it was an inflatable) so we finally got rid of it. She's doing well. Her cousins come to visit the first week of July and I'm looking forward to cramming all the kids in the tub for one big splashy mess :)

Their visit should be a lot of fun. We're so glad they're coming out! They're driving all the way from Wyoming so it will be a long trip, but a fun one. Plans so far are to catch a Rivercats game, hit the beach, the zoo, Fairytale Town, and spend some time at the pool. P is going to LOVE having the kids around!

I just finished up my first class since Griffin was born. Grades will be posted by Friday so we'll see... through week 3 I have a 98% but I totally half-assed my last week's assignments and am not expecting to get all As on those. So this class might be my first B of Grad school. Or not.

I start student teaching in August (did I already mention this? I forgot). And while I'm looking forward to getting into the classroom I'm also nervous about leaving the kids for so long. Being a stay at home mom is exhausting (well, a SAHM looking for work), but I do love spending my days with the kids. Not everyone gets the chance to spend this much time with their kids at this age and I'm trying to appreciate every moment (even the screaming tantrum ones).

Ok, I should really try and sleep. Maybe Griffin will be nice and let me have 6 hours uninterrupted... he did that 3 nights ago and it was AMAZING.