Workin' the Potty Excuse, A Little Too Talkative, Barbies With Toileting Issues, Early Intervention

Lately our family has gone through more than a week of uneventfulness.  Hey, I am not complaining--the quietness is nice occasionally!!  In the meantime we have been keeping somewhat busy.  Today was Noah's second Early Intervention visit.  The first visit was last week, but that visit mostly consisted of writing up an IFSP (individualized family service plan) and determining how we will be paying for their services by reviewing our last year's tax return form.  That bothered me a little, but I guess they gotta keep their priorities right!  Anyway, today was his first actual visit where they provided services.  Of course this morning before they came Noah decided to do a header in his bedroom and came out with a HUGE black goose egg on his forehead.  Why does that always happen before a doctor visit or any other kind of visit?  During the visit you have to awkwardly explain why your negligently allowed your child to injure themselves.  **SIGH**  Of course, as always, the picture does not do his HUGE goose egg justice.  The huge knot is bigger and badder in 3D than it is in 2D from looking at the picture, but you can only appreciate the lumpy swolleness of it from seeing it in person--poor kid. 

Sarah, of course, had to be part of the Early Intervention action and every toy they gave to Noah, she grabbed it away from him.  Maybe that's why he screams instead of talks most of the time--it's because if he took the time to actually say something his toys would be LONG GONE.  If he screams he gets immediate attention rather than if he tried to take the time to tell Sarah, "Give me back my toy!!"  I tried to distract Sarah with other things and some of the time it worked, but only if she had a toy airplane in one hand and a toy car in the other.

Am I grooming my girl to be girly or what?!  I am not too worried because afterward we did play Barbies together.  However, while we were playing Sarah stopped me and said, "Oh no!  Cinderella pooped in her underwear!"  I loved that she informed me that my Cinderella Barbie had pooped her underwear and she even made me pretend to clean her up and give her new underwear.  Don't you love imaginative play while trying to potty train a toddler?!  You can tell what part of potty training we have been working on (but not succeeding) lately, huh?!  Noah can dish out the teasing, too.  He waits until Sarah is seated on her little potty, then he runs over and pulls out her 'pretty pretty' which is her hair bow and runs away with it.  It makes Sarah pretty upset.  She can't run after him to get it either, because her pants are around her ankles.  It is funny to watch, but I can't let Sarah see me laughing because that makes her pretty mad.  She has figured out how to exploit the potty excuse, though, especially at church.  She has figured out if she tells me she needs to go pee pees that she immediately gets whisked away to the bathroom and out of the boring high councilman's talk.  Aaron is loving having Sarah potty trained. When we first started having kids we came up with the rule that Aaron would take the boys potty and I would take the girls potty in public.  Well as you can see Aaron got the raw end of the deal because we ended up having 4 boys.  I tell him it was his fault we had 4 boys every time he complains he has to take one or all of the boys potty in public.  However, he is loving to watch me have to take Sarah to public bathrooms because he has had to do it with the three older boys he figures it is finally my time to struggle.  He laughs every time he hears Sarah tell me she has to go pee pees and we are not at home.  I just cringe because I HATE public bathrooms and taking a newly trained toddler potty on the toilet where they have to hold on to the nasty toilet to keep from falling in....ewww!!  And then trying to wash their hands without them touching everything--that's a near impossible task!!  I have to restock my hand santizer bottle every bathroom visit since she gets doused in it after every visit--YUCK!!  All the while Aaron just laughs at me while I struggle to take her potty without having an OCD panic attack about keeping her germ free!!  I can't wait until she has been trained long enough to hold her pee pees in until we can make it back home!!
Saturday we got Noah dressed for the day.  Getting him dressed in this outfit brought back all kinds of memories.  We got this outfit from Grandma M. for Matthew and it has gone through all 4 boys and still is in pretty good condition.  Noah likes hanging on to his suspenders and walks around like this a lot of the time:

 I can't believe Noah is big enough to wear this.  I will be sad to retire this outfit when he outgrows it...

Friday is popcorn day at Josh and Daniel's school.  For a fundraiser the school sells bags of popcorn for $0.50.  I think it is a little pricey, but both Daniel and Josh are really into it.  At first I didn't give it much thought, but Daniel came home Friday telling me all about how yummy his bag of popcorn was.  My alert signal suddenly went on high for two reasons.  The first being that I have searched and searched and have only found one brand of popcorn that is Daniel friendly (dairy and butter free) and that is Orville Redenbacher's Light Kettle Corn flavor microwave popcorn.  I started asking Daniel what color his popcorn was and he told me it was yellow.  I then asked when he ate his popcorn and how he was feeling--if he was wheezy or anything.  He told me he ate it at first recess which is around 10:30 am and that he felt great and was not wheezy.  He then told me it was the best tasting popcorn he had ever eaten.  Hmmmm.....the popcorn is either so artificial there is no dairy in it or he amazingly didn't react to the butter flavor.  Either way I am glad he didn't react to it and he can eat it and enjoy it without any ill effect.  The second reason my alert signal went off was because I had not given them any money to buy the popcorn with.  Daniel told me that they were handing out the popcorn for free, but I am still wondering.  I hope it really was free.....This week, however, Josh and Daniel have been scrounging up all my spare change from around the house.  I didn't think I had too much change laying around, but after looking at their stash I need to be more careful--they are already up to $2.50 after only three days.  Who knew I could find so much loose change laying around my house?!  I should start saving up for me instead of unknowingly giving them their popcorn fund!!

Friday night was our family movie night.  We watched The Suite Life on Deck movie.  Not my or Aaron's first choice, but it was Josh and Daniel's so we watched it.  There was one part that was a little suspenseful and Daniel was pretty worried.  It was so funny to see his worried face he was really into the movie.  I tried to secretly take a picture of his worried look, but it turned out crooked.

 I tried to take another picture, but got caught.

Luckily, the movie ended happily so everyone (especially Josh and Daniel) were happy about that--phew!

Speaking of being sneaky, I secretly videoed Aaron playing Barbies with Sarah the other day after he got home from work.  I think it was cute, Aaron was a little embarrassed when he found out, but that's what happens when you have a little girl!!  It is funny to hear what he says at the very end of the video...

Noah LOVES snow.  He loves to eat it every chance he gets.  Saturday we went to the grocery store and by the time we came out it was starting to snow.  Noah was in heaven.  I recorded him eating all the snowflakes off his coat one at a time.  What a funny kid!

Sarah is one tough girl (if you can't tell that from the previous picture with the car and the airplane in her hands).  Sunday when we got home from church she tried to start a snowball fight with dad.  While this intense snowball fight was going on all the rest of the boys ran inside because they were cold.  Oh how opposite things can be in our family.

In other happenings let me just tell you Aaron can be a pretty chatty guy--I think he gets that trait from his dad.  Most the time his chattiness turns out well because I am the opposite of that.  If I ever lived by myself I am afraid I would be very hermit like because I am so shy and socially awkward--hopefully that will never happen.  Anyway his chattiness got us in to trouble a few weeks ago, though.  Aaron went in to pay our water and city bill and got to chatting with the lady behind the counter.  He then asked her why our city bill was so much cheaper in our rental house than it was in our old house.  Come to find out they were only charging us for the use of one garbage can instead of the two that we had.  When she found out we had two garbage cans she made arrangements to come and take our second garbage can away--DOH!!  Oh well, we only have a few more weeks of living here anyway.  Hopefully we can float along with only one garbage can instead of two for the next few weeks....

Noah loves household chores.  He loves it when I sweep.  As soon as he hears the broom he comes running--not to help me, but to eat all the leftover food that I sweep up--YUCK!!  He also loves it when I load the dishwasher.  He loves taking all the dishes and silverware out as soon as I put them in.  Trying to sweep and load the dishes can be a little frustrating when he's around.  I usually wait to do these things when he is down for a nap, strapped in his high chair, or when Aaron can hold him and keep him out of the kitchen.  However, the other day I attempted it alone with Noah unrestrained in any way.  I thought it went ok until I went to unload the dishwasher a few hours later and found some toy cars and a happy meal toy that he had thrown in the dishwasher to be washed without me knowing.  I am just glad the toys came out without being rusted or melted and now I know they are clean.  Wahoo!  What a helper!!

Matthew insists on being a gentlemen and  holding the doors for anyone and everyone.  The only downside is whenever anyone walks through his opened door, he tells them they need to say THANK YOU to him.  He won't let them walk through his door until they have told them thank you.  It can make for a few interesting situations, but for the most part everyone says thank you--thank goodness!!  It did cause a problem the other day when we went to a play land.  He kept opening up the door for people, but every time he did a few kids would escape.  We told him to stop, but when our attention was turned he was back at it.  Oh well I guess there could be worse things to be worried about...What a crazy kid!!