Next?

This is how everyone looks in our house these days, running around in underwear and shirts with no shorts. If we go somewhere, I have been putting plastic covers on them just to minimize the mess and then making sure we are near bathrooms. Will is doing a nice job of going potty anywhere I ask him to.

OK - so now it's Grace's turn! She had been saying to me for about a week "Take me to Target to get my underwear, mommy." So, we did. Sunday, we went to Target. (And just an aside about that trip, the girl never stopped talking the whole time. She pointed to everything asking "What's those, mommy?" and constantly talked about what she was seeing, hearing, doing, holding, everything. Boy does she talk a lot when there's no one else to steal the attention.) So, we got her underwear and started first thing Monday morning. I knew Grace would be easy to potty train physically, it would just be the attitude we would have to overcome, and I was entirely right. The girl won't cooperate. She cries or yells "mommy, mommy, mommy" for the entire time she has to potty. She gets REALLY excited when she does go potty and I make a huge deal about it, but the feeling doesn't seem to last or carry over to next time. A little part of me thought she might be easy to potty train, she is quick to please me, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'll give it a little longer to see if her behavior improves, because I know she can control her pottying. She only potties 4 or 5 times a day, sometimes going 3 hours between. So, it's not a matter of control, just cooperation. She is entirely different to try to potty train than Will, who is by the way still plugging along. He FINALLY did say today "Mommy I have to go potty" and I promptly sent him in there, but most of the time, if I forget to send him, he'll have an accident. He also still hasn't pooped in the potty, save for just a little bit one time which was probably an accident. It'll just take time for him, I think. Xander has also been asking to sit on his potty, so I think he'll be cooperative when his time comes in a few weeks.

We haven't done much that is news or picture worthy lately. Just sticking close to home for easier pottying. The boys did get their haircut this morning, just in time for family gatherings in the next two weeks. I thought it might be nice if they didn't look like wild children when we see people we haven't seen in a while. We have had a trip to the library and museum, and indoor playground tomorrow. But, I've been going those places with a second adult so I can take Will to the potty without the other two playing around in the dirty bathroom.

New things they're saying :

"Oh my gosh!"

"I forgot" (I haven't heard them use this one in context, I think they're just copying someone that said it.)

They have started asking "What's that?" while I'm driving and I can't see what they're pointing at. So, I'll say "Where?" and usually they'll tell me where they're looking "on that truck, mommy" or "on that house, mommy". They can also answer "when" questions. Lately, they've been pretty quick to tell us if they like or don't like something, especially food. Since Xander eats pretty much everything you put in front of him, it's rare to hear "I don't like that, mommy." But it has been showing up lately. He said that about hard-boiled eggs and tartar sauce (separately) today. We're going to Superior this weekend to see family and go to a wedding, and Opa's (Gerhard) 85th birthday party is this weekend, too. So, hopefully we'll have lots of family pictures and stories to tell next week. Have a good long weekend everyone!

A happy update

Hi all! I have a great update for you this week, it mostly has to do with Will's potty training (as you may have guessed, it's occupying most of my thoughts). He's doing fantastically! After a rough start on Monday and Tuesday last week, he started to get into the groove on Wednesday. By the weekend, he was having no accidents (except pooping ones) and was staying dry thru nap and even waking up in the morning dry! The start of this week has been just as good. He's staying dry for 1 to 1/2 hour stretches, and he goes everytime we send him into the bathroom. Now, let me say, he still is not able to tell me when he has to go to the bathroom. In fact, I got distracted by something on Monday morning and forgot to send him and he had an accident. And he is still not pooping in the potty. But, other than that, I think he's doing as well as we can expect for only having been at it for a week and a day. Grace has been asking for her big girl underwear, so she may be next. I don't know if she'll cooperate or not, but we can hope, right!

Since potty training is taking up most of my energy, we haven't gone anywhere or done much lately. They did spend Saturday with grandma and grandpa Niebuhr while Brian and I went to Omaha and purchased bedroom furniture. It's getting delivered Sept 11, so shortly after then, the boys will have their own room and Grace will have a redecorated nursery. We are nearing completion on the painting phase of the basement project, now all that's left is to move the office down there. I believe that will happen sometime this weekend.

One new funny thing they are saying is "I really doubt it." (Will has even used this one in context. I said to him "I saw that." and he said "I really doubt it.") Grace announced to us "I don't like corn mommy, but I like ketchup though." Thanks Grace. Xander still loves trains and has been playing "train" all the time lately.

That's about all for now. I'll try to get some pictures up next week. Have a good week, all!

Children's Zoo and Train ride

Here are a few pictures of the zoo trip on Friday. It was a day with special deals for families with multiples. We got 3 train rides for the price of one. (Otherwise, we would never take them on the train.) They loved it! Xander spent the whole ride with a huge smile on his face. They have talked about it everyday since. We ran through the zoo kind of fast that day, though. We had to get the kids to my parents and get home because Brian and I, along with Mike and Hilary Wiese and Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chad went to Wichita on Friday afternoon. Our friend Jason got married there. We had a fun road trip, and got to go out on Friday night. The wedding was nice. Then, we came home Saturday afterwards. It was nice to have a little time away. Sunday we went to the Scribners for Carter's first birthday. We also found out that day that Brian and I are going to have another niece or nephew. Lisa is pregnant with #2. Congrats Lisa and Chad! The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and resting, everyone was tired from the trip or stay at grandparents. We have stuck close to home Monday and Tuesday to keep close to a potty chair for Will (see next post). Hopefully we can start getting out again next week, if he is catching on more. We would like to go swimming a couple of more times before the pools close next week.

Another exciting development over the past few weeks is that they've finally learned to pedal their tricycles. It has been slowly coming, they were getting better and now they can mostly do it. Going up the driveway is still a little hard, because it's uphill and they're not quite strong enough. They need a little momentum from downhill to get them started. But, at least they're going a little way before they get stuck. We'll take it. Funny new phrases they use are "umm...." (Xander does this a lot when making a decision. He is so slow!) "What's that, mommy?" (I hear that one a lot!) I've heard will exclaim "OH!" a couple of times lately when he's figured something out. And the funniest one was today when I was trying to get Grace to sit on her potty (of course she didn't). So, I relented. Then, as she was sitting on my lap and I was combing her hair. It had a lot of knots and my brushing must have hurt because she looked at me and said "I'd rather sit on the potty, mommy". I just about died laughing. I asked her "what did you say?" and she repeated it. I didn't hear wrong. She never did sit on the potty, though.

Also, say a quick congrats to Brian if you talk to him. He got a promotion at work this week, along with a raise. His official title is now Principal Design Engineer. Pretty exciting! That's about all. Thanks for checking up.

Will's potty training

Here's a good shot of him in the Elmo underwear he picked out at Target on Sunday.

Well, we finally took the next step with Will and he is now wearing underwear. It is going OK. I wouldn't say it's going bad or poorly, because he does potty in the potty chair. He just doesn't do it as much as he needs to. He pottied twice today in the potty, but had 7 accidents, two of the hard to clean up variety. It's a little frustrating, because we're not entirely sure he understands when he's wet. I've asked him numerous times if his underwear was dry and he would answer yes, when it wasn't. And twice tonight, Brian asked him to go to the bathroom and sometime between that question and going into into the bathroom, he peed. He's completely cooperative and very proud of himself when he does use the potty, we're just going to need to keep working until he starts to understand the action. So, we'll stay the course, I guess. I'll keep you updated!

Toe nail polish gone wrong

This morning, Grace was pretending to paint her toenails "pink, like mommy's" , so I asked her if she wanted me to paint her toenails for real. Usually she says no to this, but today she said yes. So, I did. The boys didn't really care that she was getting painted toes and they weren't, and they just went on playing and remarking on Grace's "purple toes". So, after I was done painting, I put the nail polish on the top shelf and we went into the kitchen to take a picture. When we came back, this is what I found. Xander painting the white shelf with the pink nail polish saying "pretty!". I was more horrified that he was using my brand new, expensive bottle of nail polish to play with, than I was about the shelf. It's just a cheap thing we painted, that can be easily covered up. He did get one little spot on the carpet, but miraculously nothing else was damaged. I can't believe he crawled up the shelves to obtain that polish. I remember very clearly, it was on the top shelf!!!!! Crazy boy! (Also, I'm pretty sure Will had nothing to do with it. He was across the room the whole time.)

Other than this incident this morning, things have been fairly normal around here. We have been staying home or indoor away from the heat. We did go swimming on Saturday, late afternoon at a public pool. The kids had a good time. We also hit the museum on Friday morning.

We have been having a tough time with Grace. She has been very obstinate, to a fault, lately. She wants to do everything herself and will even go so far as to undo what you did for her that she wanted to do for herself. For example, this morning, I asked her to pick up her pajamas and put them in the dirty clothes pile. Will did it for her. She freaked out, took them out of the pile, threw them across the room all while yelling "No, my do it!! No, my do it by myself!" Then proceeded to go pick them up and put them in the pile. This happens daily. If I help her put her shirt on, she'll take the shirt off and try to put it on again, by herself. Very rarely will she calmly ask for help if she needs it. Most of the time she'll scream. And, she threw a good hour and a half tantrum last night because she didn't get to close the gate at the top of the stairs by herself. Xander had on hand on it, so she freaked out about that, so I went and closed it. It was a long night.

Nothing is new with the boys, they are still doing all the same things. Xander is eating a lot and squeezing people all the time. Will is happy and content and always plays nicely. Nothing new with potty training, we need to take the next step, but I am again procrastinating. It's so daunting to think about trying to do this with three, that I just shut down and can't think about it. Hope you are all staying cool. More next week.