Valentine’s Program

Well, what else is new, I’m behind on posting!  Will had a Valentine’s program at his school.  I was thrilled because we got him to put on the pink shirt that he refused to wear for the big reveal. He looked really cute in it!  I tried getting a pic of him before school, and well that’s the best I got.  He now does the cheese face and it is cute but it is also a little exaggerated.  :)

Below he is in the front row looking over to the side.  He did fine.  He didn’t cry (I hid so he wouldn’t see me).  He also didn’t sing.  Not a single word.  Nor did he do a single motion.  Ah well.  At least he stayed up there!  That’s a lot better than several of the kids did.  He had his hand in his back pocket most of the time, which was kind of funny.  My Will Ryan.  A sweet mess. They had snacks in the room after their big performance.  He was into that part!  He sits by this cute girl Marley to his left.  He talks about her all the time.  And he talks about his friend Jack.  It is funny how at an early age they learn to gravitate towards certain friends. There is is again! That cheese face!!!!  I love my cheese face!!!

Big Boy Bed!

A few weeks ago, we bought Will a new bedroom suit!  He’s such a big boy now!  He loves his new bed and his train bedding.  It is so cute.  I need to decorate the room – the walls are really bare.  We painted it this slate blue color and I really like it.  It was a light brown/tan before and it was kind of boring.  It was time for something new. 

Transition.  Well, that was an interesting one.  I didn’t really put a whole lot of thought into how that would go.  I assumed it would be a little tricky getting him to stay put – but I wasn’t exactly prepared for it.  The first few nights I laid down with him.  It was a whole new experience and I am sure it was weird for him being all open.  Then on about the 4th night he thought mommy laying down with him was play time.  And mommy laid there for hours upon hours trying to get him to drift off to sleep.  Every time I thought he was out and I started to get up he’d pop up and say something heartbreaking like, stay mommy, I’ll scoot over mommy, stay in the covers mommy.

So then we realized we needed to teach him to sleep in his bed by himself.  I can’t lay there for hours every night.  So we did some tough love.  And it was tough.  :(  Pretty sure Will and I were both crying that first night.  He kept getting up and we kept putting him back.  Two nights of a little chaos was all, though.  By the third night, he was fine!  He’s been doing great every since!  And – even more surprising – he’s only had one accident since he moved into it. He can get up and tell us if he needs to go.  So that’s a bonus!  Our little boy is growing up!!

It’s A…

This past Monday (I’m a slow blogger these days) we had our 18 week sonogram and had everyone over to dinner to find out the sex of the baby!  I know this is the new rage and my sister-in-law did it with Miles and it was just so much fun to find out all together.  However, that meant us not finding out at the sonogram.  Just a little bit of torture.

Mom came over Sun night and we decorated in blue & pink.We had everyone dress in blue or pink and guess what they thought it was.  Notice we have 2 cheaters who appeared on both the blue and the pink teams.  We have a serious boy streak in our family so it looks like most people were playing the odds.  Funny story.  I looked all over for a pink shirt for Will because he had been saying he was going to have a sister.  The night of – he absolutely refused to put on the pink shirt.  I think somehow he knew pink was a girl color and he wasn’t doing it.  No one could convince him.  He was very matter of fact – I’m wearing a blue shirt.  Well – ok then. I was definitely not patient enough to wait until another day to find out what we are having.  So many people have a cake made with it either pink or blue inside.  That wasn’t happening.  So I read on a blog about this idea.  It is a little awkward, but it is fun to have something to open.  Essentially you have the stenographer write down what you’re having on a piece of paper and seal it up.  Then you go to a store that has gift boxes and pick out a blue and a pink outfit.  You ask the clerk to look in your envelope and ring up the one that is appropriate.  You leave her with money and come back hoping she’s done what you asked and put away the non correct one.  It actually worked out well because the clerk was a very chipper nosey person anyway.  She was more than willing to play along.  Before dinner – we had Will open the gift.  He loves opening gifts and I wanted him to feel very much included in everything. Will slung out the gift and it was PINK!!!  We are having a girl!!!  I could not believe it.  In my heart I really wanted a girl but was trying to not set myself up for disappointment if it was another boy.  Another boy would have been fun, too.  But it is a girl and I was emotional and ecstatic! Here I am trying to explain to Will that this pink outfit means he’s getting a baby sister.  I’m not sure he got it.  I’m also trying to hold it together because those pregnancy hormones were kicking and I was extremely emotional.  I’m not a crier, so it was weird for me. Our family of three about to become a very balanced family of 4!! About 2 seconds after the above pic, Will was over it and off to play.  His cousin Dylan and his friend Bryce were there.  Too much to do! We are over the moon excited about having a girl.  But more than anything, we are so thankful that she looked completely healthy on the sonogram.  Seeing her move all around inside me is the best feeling in the world.  Completely blessed!  What’s funny is less than a week later we already have the baby’s room painted pink!  :)  Will got big boy furniture Sat (that’s another post) and I wanted to paint his bedroom.  So we went ahead and painted both!  We moved the baby furniture in her room, too.  Crazy!  We now have a nursery with pink walls!

A bun...

Is in the oven!  :)  I'm not sure why I haven't blogged about this yet - but Will is going to be a big brother!  I am almost 15 weeks pregnant and we are due July 8th (or 11th - per the sonogram).  We are crazy excited as we had been praying for this miracle.  Thank you Lord for trusting us to raise another child.  We are blessed.  I had a check-up today and the heartbeat sounded great again.  I go on Monday, Feb 6th to find out if Will is getting a baby brother or a baby sister!  We got a cute shirt for Will that we used to share the news with our families back around Thanksgiving.  We would appreciate prayers for a healthy baby!

Random Thoughts

Am I the only one that secretly wishes that Jo from Supernanny would show up at my door?  I am?  Odd.  Well, I do.  I'm admitting it.  My amazingly precious son is hard at times!  His tantrums are rather impressive.  And I am rather struggling with handling them.  I've read and read and read about how to manage them and really - he is stubborn.  I know this is my happy blog about my cute kiddo, but sometimes I need to be real.  And there it is.  My random confession for the day.  Carry on.

Potty Update

I know you've all been waiting anxiously for an update (sarcasm here) so I wanted to make that happen. We are still going strong with the potty training! Will continues to do amazingly. He made it through all day of school yesterday with no accidents! His teachers were shocked! And I was definitely surprised, myself. We've had just a couple of small accidents since Friday at 5pm. I'd say that's pretty amazing. The good thing is he stops when he's having one and finishes in the potty. I think he's just forgotten or gotten excited a few times. And....even better...he has really gotten the pooping thing down! Yay! He went last night and this morning in the potty and told us both times that he needed to go. I'd say this has been incredibly successful! Yay for this!! Now, if I could figure out a way to curb all 2 yr old meltdowns, that would be a major victory. Still working on that one for now. :)

Potty Time!!

So I got a wild hair and decided that this past weekend was THE weekend to attempt potty training Will. I go back to work 40 hrs/week next week and it seemed like my last chance to really have an extended weekend to give it a shot. Honestly, I kind of had low expectations. When he moved to the 2 yr old room at school they made them wear pull-ups and they take them to the potty regularly. At first he was fairly interested in this and we would get him to go at home fairly often. Then a few months in - he was over it. We had a really hard time getting him to go. The fun had worn off, I guess. So I knew I had to take a more aggressive approach if we were going to really train him.

So I had read some different methods and I downloaded a lady's e-book that was basically a 3 day plan. The first two days were supposed to be pure torture, but by the 3rd day, they are supposed to get it. So here's how our's went...

Thursday evening I took him to the store and I had him pick out big boy underwear. We also picked out potty prizes. Yes, this method basically bribes your child into going - hey, whatever works. Clearly our potty dance had worn off.

Day 1 (Fri): It was as promised - hard. We did the big ta do Fri morning about throwing away our diapers and putting on the big boy underwear. He was pumped! He was so proud of them. We watched this (awful, low budget) dvd about pottying. Then I followed him around like a hawk all day. And I cleaned up pee off the floor most of the day. He also went in the potty about 6 times in total that day. So it was about 50/50. He seemed thrilled with the prizes. He had one big meltdown when he needed to poop and he wanted a diaper. He went searching the in the closet for them. But he couldn't find them as we had "thrown them away." He napped in his underwear and I went I went in and he was wet and he immediately said - I made a mess! However, that evening seemed to be a little better. He did great after about 5pm. No accidents. I put him to bed for the night in his underwear, hoping for the best but expecting him to be wet when I went in.

Day 2 (Sat): I run in the second I hear him Sat morning expecting a big wet mess. But...he was dry!!! So I ran him to the potty and he went. Shocking! And then - the entire rest of the day he didn't have a single pee accident. Not one! Now - honestly, we have not figured out the pooping in the potty thing. He went in his pants once on Sat. But I was pretty thrilled with the pee-less accidents. HUGE accomplishment.

Day 3 (Sun): Sat had went so well and he had been telling us when he needed to go, so we took a huge gamble and decided to go to church. I packed up a bag full of extra clothes and we gave it a shot. We went to pick him up from his class and believe it or not he was still wearing the same clothes we sent him in!! What?!? Shocked. Completely shocked. There are different workers during Sunday School than church but the ones that were there during church said he went to the potty twice with her. Have mercy!

So then we really took a gamble and decided to go to lunch with our Sunday School class. We're in a fairly new church to us and seem to always miss the social events. So we wanted to go. Why not - we were on a roll. He asked twice to go the potty. The first time he didn't do anything. I think he was weirded out that he didn't have his cute little potty to go in. The 2nd time, I made him go. We worked it out - pretty tricky since he's too little to sit on a big potty but he did it! So we made it through Sunday as well with not a single pee accident. He must be holding the poop, because he didn't go at all on Sunday. That - we need to figure out. He's done so well with the peeing that we even stopped giving him prizes and he didn't seem to care.

I went in this morning and he was dry again. I really am shocked at how quickly it clicked for him. I'm thrilled. He's spending the day today with his Aunt Kayse and G.J. - so I am hoping he does okay. I'll let you know in a few days how we are progressing! I am so proud of my little big boy! (He really looks SO little in his big boy underwear!!).

UPDATE: Just got a text from G.J. and he pooped in the potty!! Holy moly! I am one happy momma! What a big boy!!!!