Well, everyone around here seems to be growing up tremendously day by day. A couple of updates for you, we'll start with the littlest one.
Nathaniel has changed. In a GOOD WAY! No more crying. No more screaming. No more bouncingswayingwalkingswaddlingohmygodpleasejuststopcrying. I don't know what happened exactly. Maybe it was because I started being more consistent with his reflux meds (likely). Maybe he just outgrew whatever it was that was ailing him? I think a large part of it is that I have slowed things down around here. I have high expectations that we must always be doing something and going somewhere and I think that just overwhelmed all of us. I am making more of an effort to be home for consistent naps and it seems to be paying off. For a week now, he's been taking 2 hour naps in the morning and sometimes 3 hour naps in the afternoon. It is amazing. I still find myself pacing back and forth at the 40 minute mark waiting for him to wake up screaming, but he's been sleeping right through. It is such a relief. I'm able to dedicate time with the big kids again, and they need that. Nathaniel now smiles and laughs and just loves it when we get close to his face talk and play. Right before things got better, they got worse. Much worse. I knew he was teething but I didn't expect any teeth any time soon. I was wrong! He popped two bottom teeth right after he turned 4 months. He is much better now, although the drooling hasn't subsided so I wonder if he may be getting another soon.
He has started pushing himself around during tummy time so I have to watch him a bit more to make sure everything withing a certain radius is safe. He still doesn't tolerate laying on his back much and he wants so badly to sit up, but he isn't quite there yet. He just wants to be big!
Middle Child next. There are big things happening with Joshua Jr right now! At school, they start working on potty training at 18 months. His teacher suggested we start with him at home and see what his interest level is and then they would assess at school when to start. Well, he was very enthusiastic about the potty when we pulled it out, so last weekend (JSR was off work) we decided to try out some underwear and just go for it. The thing about just going for it, is that you can't really go back. So he's in underwear now when we're at home and at school. He typically will tell me when he has to go, but sometimes he'll starting peeing a tiny bit and then will run to the bathroom once he realizes he's wet. So we're not having big wet accidents, just tiny ones. I think our whole attitude and outlook with potty training is so different this time around and that is helping us be patient. With Audrey, we tried the 3 day training which worked, but had some drawbacks too (like pooping in underwear every day for 9 months) so really it didn't work. This time we are looking at it more as an ongoing effort with hopes that by January/February he will be fully trained. The hardest part right now is actually teaching him to pull up and down his underwear. His teacher insists that we let him do it and encourage him even when he is frustrated, but that's hard when I have so many other things going on at the same time and I just want to get it over with. I am learning every day to just SLOW DOWN and stop rushing through things.
He is so proud of himself when he has success, and he loves to dump out his little potty and flush the toilet. Its the little things in life. Although to him, I know this is a very BIG thing. Doesn't he look so cute in his undies? Thomas the Train, of course. He loves all things train right now, so I want to take him on a short train ride from Manassas to the Burke station and see if he likes that, or even spend a few hours at Burke Lake Park to ride the train. It'll have to be a mommy-son date though, I can't take all three by myself. I'm still too scared!
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| This is what trouble looks like. |
Audrey is growing every day. Maturing, really. Three was a great age that I loved, but four is turning out to be fun too. She went from just asking "why" all the time, to asking specific "why"s. Some of her questions lately are:
Why does it rain?
Why is the sky blue?
What is in the clouds?
What is under the ground?
Why do we poop?
I want to take a trip to the library and see if I can find some kid books about some of these. Of course we can google (and we have been) but she just loves the library so I think she'd like doing this together. That is also just a one-on-one trip though. I have tried with all three and it doesn't work. JJ doesn't like books so much as he likes pushing them off the shelves. So we don't last long there.
