Heard this today with my own ears:
"How do you spell UP?"
"I WANT GUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!!!"
"Lena, you don't need any gum, you just had that chocolate chip I found on the floor for you."
"5 times 9 is 5."
"I was slinging it around like this and he just walked into it on purpose."
"Yes it's NOT!"
"Come'on Son."
I'll let you decide who said what.
You just can't make this stuff up.
The moon was absolutely beautiful last night. I pointed it out to Lena as we were on our way to church. It went a little something like this:
Hey Lena, look at the moon! Do you see it? Isn't it so pretty?
Uhuh, see it, moon!
...chuch it, Mama, chuch it?
(heart swelling) No, baby, we can't touch it. It's too far.
Fwy, Mama, Fwy? Chuch it?
Maybe one day, baby. Maybe one day we can fly to the moon and touch it.
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I found this video in Photo Booth the other day, and I just couldn't keep this jewel to myself. Enjoy!
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Jessi was especially emotional today for some reason. Maybe because she's 8? I don't really know. I think she just really needed some affection. So she was sitting in my lap snuggling with me, after MUCH drama during the course of the day, and she was suddenly being so sweet, telling me how sorry she was for how she had acted today. Then I was telling her how it was already forgotten, and no matter what she did or how she acted I would always love her bunches. Sweetness.
Then she asked me if there was ever anything Daddy could do to make me divorce him. And I told her absolutely not. Me and Daddy are never getting a divorce. The she said,
"Even if he stabbed you with a fork?"
Um. You know what? Yes. Yes, Jessi. I would definitely take all of you and leave your Daddy if he ever STABS ME WITH A FORK.
"Well, what if he was in a fight with somebody else and he accidentally stabbed you in the head?"
...
Don't you wish you had a Jessi?
Mission accomplished! We are officially potty trained! I was prepared for this to take longer than 3 days but it didn't! She's got this. Monday we had 30 accidents. Yesterday we had 7 (including the 2 in her sleep). Today we had 5, but I'm only counting 1 of those because one of them was that she woke up wet, and 3 of them were totally my fault. She ran to the bathroom and I didn't know she had gone in there so I didn't make it to her in time. She still needs help with her panties and getting up there, and she was standing right in front of the potty but I was about 2 seconds too late. The one true accident she had was before 8am and she was standing in her chair at the table, and I really think she just couldn't get down in time. She also woke up from her nap dry today, and then went in the potty.
We still did a lot of running back and forth to the potty, but today I could relax a little bit more than yesterday because I knew she would at least take off running when she had to go. She did not wet her panties once on her way to the bathroom today. She was able to recognize that she needed to go, and run to the bathroom holding it until I could get her on the potty (with the exception of the 3 times I didn't make it in time). Also, we have had no #2 accidents since Monday morning. She's got that one down for sure.
She has also figured out that it's a fun little game to yell POTTY and take off running down the hall, only to run into her room and wait for Mommy to show up behind her so she can laugh. She also will do this and then just stand in the doorway of the bathroom just to see if I'll come. It's all a big game now. Let's yell POTTY and run to a different place every time just to see if Mommy will follow! It's exhausting. This is why there were 3 times I didn't make it to her. She was constantly running somewhere. Everywhere. At least she has a special word for #2, which she got from her older siblings telling her she stinks every time she had a messy diaper. So when she takes off running and yelling STINK, I know she means business. I know that may be a little TMI, and it's also gross, but it cracks me up every time she does it.
I really didn't think we would be able to, but we even went to church tonight. And she came home in the same clothes we left the house in! Tomorrow we're working on using the footstool to get on the potty by herself and pulling her panties up and down. I'm just so amazed and proud of her! My 21 month old Lena is diaper free!
I could not wait until Lena went to bed so I could post this! And because I'm completely exhausted. So let me start by giving you the most exciting part first. Yesterday we had a grand total of 30 accidents. Yes, thirty. As in a three in the tens place and a zero in the ones place. Today? We had 7. SEVEN! I don't think I have ever been so excited about cleaning up pee seven times in one day, but I am thrilled about it! And did you notice I said pee? No poop clean up! Woot! She had 4 of those, and they ALL made it into the potty. :)
I am so much more exhausted today than I was yesterday though. Yesterday was full of picking her up and running her to the potty when she was already going. Today, I did not have to pick her up but twice. And it was because she was in a chair and wasn't sure what to do about that. Two of those seven were in her sleep. One sometime during the night, and the other during her nap. So really I'm only counting 5 accidents. And she only had 1 after her nap!
But today she understood what to do, and so every single time she even thought about going, she ran to the potty. I think we ran to the potty about a million times. About 80% of the time it was nothing. She got up there, said, "Done" after about a second, and she was off and running again. Sometimes she just wanted to stay in the bathroom. But the times I thought, ok, this is getting ridiculous, would be the times she would go, so that kept me motivated.
Around 5:00 today, she figured out that she would get M&Ms every time she actually went in the potty. It was pretty funny. (I never mentioned them at all, I would just give her some when she would go.) After she caught on to my tricks, she asked for them, and when I said no, she got upset, then got over it pretty quick. About 10 seconds later she ran to the potty again and nothing. 10 seconds after that, same thing. She was trying so hard to push something out but she couldn't do anything but toot. It was hilarious. She kept trying until she was finally able to pee a little tiny bit. What kids will do for candy.
I think we're almost there!
So today I am one proud Mama. My Lena has just amazed me with her little 21 month old potty going skills. I kind of knew she would catch on quickly, but she really did much better than I expected. I decided a while back that I was going to have her potty trained before she moved up to the toddler class at church, which will be when she turns 2 in July. I had no idea how I would do such a thing, since neither of my other 2 were potty trained that early, but I thought, "If they can do it in China, then I can do it here." So, here we go.
I did some research online, and came across this ebook called 3 Day Potty Training. I'm not exactly sure if it will only take 3 days, but I am so thrilled with her progress just from the first day, that I'm totally in. I don't even care if it takes a few more days, which I really don't think it will, it will be so worth it to be DONE WITH DIAPERS.
So let me just tell you how today went. The very first thing I did was let her put on her brand new big girl panties. :) Then, I let her throw ALL of her diapers in the trash, even the one in her little zipper pouch that we take everywhere. (Don't freak out, I didn't actually throw them out, I just put a clean trash bag in the trash can & took it out to the garage so she would think I did. They will all be given to someone who needs them.) Then, I took her to the bathroom and gave her the grand tour. Then we had breakfast.
Ok, I have NEVER even attempted to teach her anything about not going in her diaper, so this was for real the bravest thing I have ever done. I had no idea what she would do. Let me just say that it was one of the longest and most exhausting days in my life. If you called or texted me and I didn't answer or call you back, I'm sorry, but I had to go dark. I had a 21 month old literally running around my house with just panties and a shirt on. I was not taking my eyes off her for a mili-second. Which was wise, because that is how I read her. I had about a half second window of time from when she looked at me, until she said Mama and started running to the bathroom.
And she was great. It only took her once or twice to realize that she had to call for me and get to the bathroom fast when she had to go. If not anything else, I am thrilled with that alone. Yes, we had more accidents than I can count, well, actually that's not true. She went through 21 pairs of panties before nap time. But less than half that after nap time! We also had several #1's and THREE #2's IN THE POTTY!! AND she woke up dry from her nap and went in the potty. I am just so proud of her! We are definitely not done yet, but I really don't think it's gonna take this girl long!
Today we went on a little field trip to Ashford High School. Astronaut Colonel Doug Wheelock is on a tour through Alabama. Schools participating in the Civil Air Patrol's K-6 Aerospace Connections in Education Program, or ACE, were among those chosen to be part of Wheelock's tour. Colonel Wheelock has spent 178 days in space throughout his NASA career and during his most recent trip assumed command of the international Space Station.
Here is a link to his Bio:
Astronaut Bio: Douglas H. Wheelock (12/2010)
Also there, was a character named Al the Astronut, who is basically a cardboard peanut that has traveled around the world and into space with the astronauts. The idea of having this little piece of history there was pretty cool.
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I felt the need to share this, but also felt it might be too much for some of my Facebook friends to handle. They can click over at their own risk.
So this morning I was awakened to a laughing baby girl who had not only performed a #2 in her diaper, and not only took the diaper off, but also chucked it outside her crib because obviously that doesn't belong in there. Oh, and this was after it got smudged all over the sheets, bed, bumper pad, and herself. GOOD MORNING MOMMY!
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I've been wanting to share my thoughts on homeschooling for a while now, and I still plan to, it's just that, at the moment, I can't put 2 thoughts together before I'm peeling Lena down off the dining room table or something. So stay tuned...
Until then, here is a great post by one of my favorite blogs!
Not Inadequate » Blog Archive » More Homeschool Q & A
Our first trip to Disney World as a family was AWESOME! My sister and bro-in-law are annual passholders, and they go many times every year. It was great not having to think about what to do and just letting them pull us around and show us the highlights. We didn't have time to do everything, but we definitely hit the hot spots! We were ALL completely exhausted the whole time but it was SO MUCH FUN!
We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort in the Toy Story section. The kids loved it!
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This Christmas Day started off really great. And it ended even better.
First of all, Lena was hilarious the whole day. She loved everything. Our Christmas morning starts off by the kids coming into our room and climbing up into our bed to empty the stockings that we leave filled by their beds. This is my absolute favorite part of the morning. Lena was so cute sticking her entire arm down into that big stocking to get out her stuff. She was so excited. There's just nothing like watching a baby's first real Christmas when their little faces light up from excitement because they have no idea what's going on but they know they like it. I'm sad that part is over now.
Then we all run into the living room to see what Santa (they know it's us) left and to open gifts. Fun stuff, yada yada yada.
Then we all get dressed and ready for the day and head to Mimi's house in Headland for breakfast. Only this year we had to move it across the street to Jason's sister's house because his other sister (who lives at Mimi's) was sick. :(
Then we head to Grandnonna's house for lunch.
So we're opening presents at my mom's and we always go youngest to oldest. We start opening the ones from my sister, bro-in-law and niece, and I notice the gifts are a little...well...not the usual gifts they like to give. I know that this has been a really great year for them financially, and I'm noticing that these gifts are like $10 or less...maybe. At first when the kids were opening, I just thought that maybe they were trying to be nice and get us inexpensive gifts so we wouldn't feel bad for not getting them really expensive ones, but by the time it got around to my mom (remember, youngest to oldest) I realized that we're all getting these really janky tools.
Ok, before it sounds like I'm being ungrateful, please realize this is not something that bothered me, but just something that I noticed. So they "forgot" they had another bag of gifts in the car after all the opening was done and they brought it in and passed out one more box for everyone to open. They said we all (me, Jason, Jessi, Eli, my mom, my dad, and my brother) had to open at the same time. I'm thinking, aw how sweet, they got us all something really nice like a gift card or cash, what a smooth little trick with the janky tools. Nuh-uh...
WE ALL GOT 2 DAY PARKHOPPER PASSES TO DISNEYWORLD.
WOW.
I couldn't help but immediately remember the list that Jason and I made and prayed over about a year ago of things that we are believing God for. Glory be to God, we have been able to scratch off many of the things on that list this year. Today we got to scratch off a big one. Disneyworld. We actually had some extra money come into our hands this month and we immediately talked about using it for Disney, but we prayed about it and really felt the Lord showing us something different we needed to do with it. We knew the most important thing was to obey God and trust that He would take care of Disneyworld for us at the right time.
We got in the truck to come home and I just looked at Jason and said, "Did that really just happen?" It still feels like a dream. I'm so thankful for God's goodness and His love for us!
Thank you Scott, Sandy, and Lauren! We're all goin' to Disney!!!
So I took Jessi to a birthday party today, and after we left, we stopped by Captain D's for some fried pickles before we ran a few errands. I turned the wrong way leaving there, and so I just turned around in the parking lot next to it, which was Hooters. Jessi asked me why we had never been there before and so I told her that the girls that work there just don't dress appropriately, and it would be uncomfortable for all of us.
She understood, and then said, "Why don't they just wear owl costumes? Because that would be appropriate."
So, today, Jessi took care of Lena and breakfast so that I could sleep a little longer. I'm so thankful for her! She really is a great help to me. When I got up and came into the living room, all the Christmas tree ornaments that were on the tree were on the floor. She said they were a mess and that she needed to re-organize them.
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So today was crazy. I don't know if it was me or just a weird day for my kids, but there was yelling. I'm just gonna be honest. It took all of the Jesus in me not to pick up J & E by the throat. I didn't. Just had thoughts of it. Thankfully my hubby came home early and I was able to get away to run a few errands.
One of my errands involved a situation in which my insurance company almost cost me over $500. Wanna hear about it? If not, just skip down to the paragraph before the picture. But I'll try to make it short. A few weeks ago we were at Kohls and Eli slung the door open to get out, like I've said a million times NOT to do, and hit the brand new red cadillac mini suv next to us. No dent, but about an inch long deep scratch. It definitely took the paint off. I had to leave a note.
Well, she called me up and said her hubby looked at it and they were going to need it fixed. Ok, no problem. I told her to take it to a repair shop owned by a friend of my family and she did. She called me and told me the amount and it was something over $500. So, I called my insurance company and they said an adjuster would be calling me to get some info. So this lady calls from the insurance company, but didn't seem to be an adjuster. She asked me a few questions about the incident, asked me who to make the check to and where to send it, then asked for the lady's phone number who needed the repair. I answered her questions and told her to make the check out to the repair shop and send it straight to them. She said no problem and there was nothing further for me to do. Awesome. Taken care of.
So this morning the repair shop calls me up and says the job is done and asked me what I wanted to do about the payment. I told them the insurance company was sending them a check and gave them the phone number to call the insurance company to find out what the deal was. They called me back and said the insurance company said they mailed the check directly to me on Monday the 28th. That was 4 days ago. I hadn't checked my mail in a couple days so I figured it was in the mailbox and since I knew the repair shop people personally, I asked them to go ahead and let them be on their way with their vehicle and that if I didn't have the check I would just pay them myself and deposit the check when I got it. No biggie.
Something just didn't seem right though. I called my insurance company myself and they said they would check and call me back. So I get to the repair shop to write them a check and I'm chatting with them about how weird this all is. They told me the guy that picked up the car/truck/whatever had his checkbook in hand when he came to get it. Interesting. They of course told him I was taking care of it since they had already spoken to me and knew the situation, so he put his checkbook away and left. Well while I'm sitting there talking with them about all of this, my insurance company calls me and it just so happens that they sent the check TO THE LADY WHOSE CAR IS BEING REPAIRED.
MHM.
My repair shop friends told me not to worry, and they would just wait to hear from me while I got it all straightened out. Thank God for favor. I called the lady up and left her a detailed message to call me back. She called me about 5 minutes later and said that she already received the check and she thought it was weird that the repair shop told her it was taken care of. So they knew they had the check before they picked up the car.
NO FURTHER COMMENT ON THIS LADY FROM ME.
I am however very unhappy with my insurance company. Am I not the customer here? Did I not tell them where to send the check? And if they decided they needed to send it elsewhere shouldn't they have called me to let me know?
That was way long and the END of that story. I'm not talking about it anymore because it stresses me out.
At this point I still had several more errands to run, but the hubby called and said he had to go back to work, so I had to stop and go straight home. He got home around 6ish, so I finally got to go finish my errands. Enough business talk. LOOK what we got Lena for Christmas! She's gonna LOVE THIS!
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Me: "I'll be with you in a minute, Jessi. I'm only one Mommy. I can only do one thing at a time."
Jessi: "But WHY can't you just put on your super stretchy arms so you can just reach over here and help me?"
Yeah...I got nothin'.
Concerning Lena:
Lena has kind of been along for the ride of homeschooling. Meaning, I had no idea what her schedule was until about a week ago when I decided to relax a little. Poor baby. She was not very happy a lot of the time and INTO EVERYTHING. She wasn't napping well AT ALL, and it seemed her naps were getting shorter and nighttime sleep was getting shorter too. Something just wasn't right. Then it dawned on me. She has no schedule. How did that happen? Doesn't matter. Needed fixing. ASAP.
Concerning our schedule:
Ok. Just because I've relaxed a little doesn't mean I completely threw our schedule out the window. We still have a tentative one that we may or may not stick to, but it really does help me to have some kind of time line to go by. Plus, it helps me keep Lena on track, which is really the most important thing for all of us at this point. When she's rested and happy, life is just better for everyone. So, just in case anyone's curious, here is our routine. I say routine, because everything pretty much happens in this order, but the times may change a little...on a normal day.
7:00-quiet time for Mommy (Yesss)
8:00-breakfast
8:30-morning devotion
9:00-playtime/exercise, shower
10:00-Daily chores (for the kids) Mwahahaha...
Just kidding:) I do help some
10:30-nap/school
12:30-lunch
1:00-finish up school/free time
2:30-nap/outside play
4:30-snack/ask a million questions about dinner until Daddy gets home
6:00-dinner
7:00-bath/showers
7:30-family prayer
8:00-bed
Concerning The Firm:
I rocked that Wave today!
All across the living room floor.
I think my balance is off a smidge. My butt and legs still hurt pretty bad, but I'm sure that's a good thing. Also, I definitely wore the wrong undergarments for lunging and squatting mixed with cardio. Yep, I think that pretty much covers it.
Concerning Eli Iron Man:
I'm pretty sure Eli is in there somewhere, but there's a small version of Iron Man living here at the moment. Eli has been wanting a transformer suit for the longest time and has been faithfully saving up his hard earned money for it. I decided this might be a good time to get it since there's a larger selection in the stores this month. Instead, we found Iron Man. He has muscles. And a mask. And he's totally awesome. He's so awesome that he joined us for breakfast. He only took a break for a birthday party we went to and as soon as we walked in the door, in goes Eli, out comes Iron Man. I think his bright redness might be pink by the end of the month.
Concerning fingernails:
I'm actually putting "fingernail and toenail clipping" on my calendar for next month. I don't know what it is about this task, but I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER to do it! I always end up catching it when we're on our way somewhere or after they're all asleep. I don't mean their fingernails and toenails are a little long. I mean they're CLAWS. With DIRT UNDER THEM. It's bad. I'm just waiting for someone to notice and call DHR on me.
That is all for today. I'm going to go cut some fingernails. And toenails.
I had to rock Lena to sleep tonight. I usually just lay her down awake, but tonight I just needed to feel her still, little sleeping body pressed up against mine. I needed to hear her heavy, sound asleep breathing in my ear. When I hear that sound, I think about all the things she did that day, and how exhausted she must be from it. She's learning so much so fast and going full speed. I needed to feel and smell her sweet baby breath on my cheek. I needed to give her that last big squeeze before I laid her into her bed, and kiss her chubby little cheeks and lips and forehead and cheeks again with all my might. I can't believe she's already 14 months old and walking. I remember these moments with Jessi and Eli, and wish them back all the time. I know I can never get them back, and it makes my heart ache, but I still have a few of them left.
I just needed to feel her sleep.
"Hey kids, clean up Lena's room a little. Doesn't have to be perfect, just clear the floor so I can vacuum."
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