Toilet Thoughts

As Allen sat on the toilet tonight, he called me in to him:

"Mommy, I want you."

"Yes baby," I said, walking into the bathroom.

"I missed you," he said, looking up at me with those blue eyes.

Laughing, I replied, "I missed you too."

He smiled. Then he said, "Are you my friend?"

"Yes!" I replied.

Another smile. "Good." 

After another few minutes, he called to us again from the toilet ...

"What is Jehovah doing up in heaven?" he wondered, pointing up to the ceiling. "Is he playing games?"

The mind of a 3-year-old ....

Potty training day one

After Allen's nap today, we started with the potty training. I sat him down for a couple minutes on the potty upstairs, and after nothing, we went downstairs with just his pajamas on (no diaper, no underpants -- he doesn't like them). While I was getting his milk, strange look came over Allen's face, and then he yelled at me, saying "STOP TALKING TO ME!"

I knew something was up. I walked over to him, and his pants were dry. But then I saw a puddle on the rug. I scooped him up, told him it was OK, and took him upstairs to clean him up. Except there wasn't anything to clean up. Somehow he managed to pee straight down the pant leg of his pajamas without hitting any of the fabric OR his leg! No clue how he did it, but he did.

I changed him anyway, cleaned up the one drop of pee on his ankle (seriously, that was it), and then put him in a pair of the (boxer) shorts Aunt Paula sent him. And then I got him situated to watch Ratatouille.
So far, he's peed twice on the rug and zero times in the potty, but we'll keep you posted on the progress or lack thereof.

xoxo,

Potty training help

We got word this morning that Allen got into E.C. Montessori, or as he calls it, "my special school." We're all very excited. He will be in the primary class (3-6 year-olds) starting this Fall.

Now we have to potty train ... please please please send me words of wisdom! I'm desperate!

xoxo,

Bathroom adventures

Some of you may be aware of how much I enjoy trying to get ready in the morning these days now that Daddy is once again employed and out of the house early. I've been unsuccessful thus far in getting ready before Daddy leaves, so each morning that I need to be out of the house at a decent time is challenging, to put it mildly.

Lest you think I'm being dramatic, I'd like to share with you my morning. It was one of the more entertaining mornings in recent memory ...

Before I share this story with you, I need to warn you that some may be disturbed by some of the things I'm about to share. Those of you who have been blessed with two-year-olds -- specifically two-year-old boys -- will probably just laugh and nod knowingly. For those of you who read my story and think, "I will never let my child do that!" I say, "Just wait." Now, without further ado ...

This morning, as with other mornings, involved me negotiating with Allen to go upstairs with me. Surprisingly, this morning was fairly easy. I just had to lure him up with food (specifically, a Sunny Days snack bar and SpongeBob juice treats). We got upstairs and got him settled with his milk, snacks, cars, and Tigger and Pooh show ... for about 10 seconds.

As I was getting into the shower, he decided that he wanted to play with the "jumping balls" (cotton balls). So, he opened up my little (glass) jar (calm down everyone ... it's very sturdy and he's very careful), and busied himself with them while I was in the shower. By busying himself, I mean that he emptied the jar of the "jumping balls" and then threw them all over the room. Some of the balls had gotten wet, so one stuck to the closet door like a spit ball.

Once I was out of the shower and dried off, and the "jumping balls" were put away, he decided to get into our shower and "clean" it. Which meant that his pajama pants and shirt got wet, and he tracked dampness all over the bathroom.

After finding some random trash under the guestroom bed while I was ironing, we returned to the bathroom so Mommy could do her makeup and her hair. And so Allen could run from a lion. This involved him slamming the bathroom door, and saying, "Oh no, a yion! It's gonna get me!" and then turning off the light. And Mommy saying, "Turn on the light, please." And Allen trying to reach to turn the light back on, unsuccessfully, and Mommy turning on the light for him. This happened about three times until, against my better judgment, I told him that the lion is afraid of the light, so he should leave it on so it will go away (yes, I know I just invited a fear of the dark, but Mommy needs her makeup).

At some point during this interchange, the lion made it underneath the door and into the toilet. Which called for repeated flushing of the toilet. Mommy's repeated pleas to stop flushing the toilet and wasting water were ignored, so Mommy pulled the lion out of the toilet and dried it off (Allen joined in too). I told him the lion was nice, and it was licking my toes. He didn't notice that though, because he discovered that there was a baby lion in the toilet now.

On top of having no respect for our earth, my son apparently has no respect for animals either, because he started to flush the "baby yion" down the toilet as well. Mommy explained that it wasn't nice to try to flush it down the toilet, but that he should be nice to the baby lion. His response was, "Awww, baby yion" followed by a kiss ... right on the toilet seat.

After Mommy stopped gagging, she rescued baby lion from the toilet, closed the lid, and explained (again) that the toilet was not the place for baby lion or for Allen to play. I then told him that the baby lion jumped into the box (a small wicker box we have in our bathroom, filled with random books and toys for Allen). That finally distracted him.

Somehow, even with all of this distraction, Mommy was able to get herself and Allen ready in about an hour and fifteen minutes. And, if I do say so myself, I looked pretty darn cute!

I hope ya'll enjoyed reading about what life is like in the mornings with Allen. While it is frequently challenging and frustrating, life is never dull with him around.

xoxo,

Sickie, Progress

So, by Monday evening, the monkey was feeling pretty lousy. And Daddy was away (long story), so when Allen woke up a second time, and asked to come into Mommy's bed (I walked in and he was holding "KittyCat," all ready to go), I gave in quite easily.

I had been downstairs paying bills, so I brought him into my room, and explained that I had to go back down to finish up some things. He nodded, and closed his eyes right away. That meant I was able to capture him and all of his adorable sleepish-ness.

On a more positive note, tonight Allen went poopy in the potty for the first time! Yay Allen!!!

Goodnight all! I'll try to post more from Disney (we leave Saturday morning)!

xoxo,

Stay Back, Stinky, Groucho

So, I have like a skillion pictures from our Pennsylvania trip to post, but it's already almost midnight as I begin this post, so we're going to have to do it in several parts. I hope to post them all by early in the week.

Before I get started, I am sad to say that we did NOT win the chili cook-off (although, I do think that our chili was the best there). On a very positive note, we had a record night at Joli (for those of you who are curious, we did better than we did on Oktoberfest), doubling our month's sales in one evening! Woohooo!!!

But I digress ... Back to the true subject of this blog, my hilarious son Allen. Before I begin the recap of our Pennsylvania trip, I'd like to share two cute stories from this weekend ...

While we are still obsessed with Cars (and the collection has grown exponentially over the past few weeks), we are also branching out to Madagascar. I thank McDonald's for that, since their happy meal toys are the characters from the movie (promoting Madagascar II, of course). So last night at Nana's, Allen watched part of cars and the decided he wanted to watch "Agasca" (Madagascar). Papa, Nana, Big Dude (aka Uncle Mark), and Ashell (aka Aunt Michelle) all sat down with him to watch. At one point, Alex (the lion), tells Marty (the zebra) to "Stay Back!" Allen decides to pick this up. "Stay back!" he starts to say to each of us.

A few moments later, Nana decided Allen needed is diaper changed. She stands up, and he starts backing away (he has this thing with walking backwards lately -- it looks like he's trying to Moonwalk), and he says, "Stay back, Nana, stay back!" Fabulous, eh?

Tonight as I was getting Allen changed for bed, he informed me that he had to go potty. So we went and sat on the potty and read the "Potty Book." We read the whole thing (it's actually pretty long), and when it got to the part about putting a sticker on the chart, he wanted to pick a sticker out. So we said, OK, stand up so we can see what sticker to put on (he gets a smaller flower sticker for sitting, and a big sticker that says various things like "Hooray for Pee" if he goes). Lo and behold, he went peepee in the potty! Good job, Allen.

After we flushed the peepee and washed his hands and brushed his teeth, he says to us, "Poopy is stinky!" Ain't that the truth!

Now onto the first part of our family trip recap.

On Thursday, Daddy and Allen got haircut. Allen sat in the chair for the first time without freaking out. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me then (it wasn't really a planned haircut), but we did get a couple shots that evening before meeting. Note that he was NOT happy that we were going to meeting because it meant that the cars had to stay home.

Stay tuned for additional installments of the Pennsylvania Trip recap. Goodnight kids!

XOXO,

Success!??

Puckering Up!

We watched Cars again today. Allen woke up from his nap and said, "Watch Cars pease." So we did. He knows it so well that he can anticipate certain scenes. He said to me "See Mommy, see, Keen ... Keen did it!" several seconds before McQueen did something race-car-ish (flipped over or something like that). One would think that he would be getting bored with it if he can anticipate what's coming next, but he doesn't. He sits on the floor in front of our ottoman/coffee table and pushes his McQueen and Chick cars around while he watches them on the big screen.

Usually Allen puts up a fight when it's time to upstairs to bed and/or to get a tubby. But tonight, he said, "OK ... Peepee potty." So we sat on the potty before our tubbies.

After a few minutes, he said, "Tubbies now pease," And went over to the bathtub. He got his bath, and decided he needed to go peepee potty again (since we were not successful pre-bath). He kept sitting down and getting up off the potty, and at one point while he was standing, he looks down and starts to pee. I grabbed him and sat him down on the potty, but before I could get him "situated" he peed again and almost hit Mommy in the face. We finally got everything where it was supposed to be, and he did go peepee in the potty!

We celebrated and gave high-fives and all that good stuff. Daddy was telling him that when he learns to go on the potty all the time he can wear his big boy underwear. Allen said, "Dago dago" (his big-boy underpants are Diego), and Daddy showed them to him. Then Daddy decided he should try them on. So here he is showing them off to Mommy.

About 10 seconds after I took these photos, he peed in his big-boy underpants. I guess we still have some work to do, huh?