Potty training, here we come!

Today's the big day (hopefully).

Today we start potty training boot camp!

Three days of Lucas-you-take-the-other-kid, chugging-the-fluids, sitting-on-the-potty-every-20-minutes, wearing-undies-and-no-pants, no-trips-outside-the-house. At least that's the plan.

The dispenser is full of M&M's.  Daniel and Prince Wednesday Go to the Potty is on the DVR.  Potty books have been gathered from library branches across Lexington.  Potty seats are ready in both bathrooms.  Thomas undies are washed.  I think I'm as ready as I can be.

I've been dreading/looking forward to this day for awhile.  Most of Carter's two-year-old friends are already potty-trained.  As much as I didn't want to have to deal with 2 kids in diapers, I realized that I'd rather do that than deal with an infant in diapers and a toddler who has accidents.  Changing diapers seemed easier to control.  And so I put off this day until the summer (as suggested by my OB-GYN, mom of 3 boys).  Once summer came, I put off this day until now, my last full week of vacation.  It's now or never! (well, not really -- as they say, there aren't many college students walking around in diapers).

Carter hasn't been super interested; in fact, most of the time he screams "No! I not use the potty!" when I say things like, "This summer, Carter, you're going to start using the potty!"  We've been reading some potty books from the library, though, and he has started to be intrigued. At the end of "Potty Superhero," it says something like "Soon you'll use the potty, too, and wear big boy pants like me!"  To which Carter screams, "NO!!!! Yet's (let's) read it again!"

He's also been intrigued by the M&M dispenser that Melissa Tibbs let us borrow.  I let him try one and then told him that he'd get more once he peed in the potty.  One day, Lucas showed Carter how he peed in the potty and then got himself an M&M.  This was very motivating to Carter.  He promptly sat himself on the toilet and pee actually came out! He's been on the potty several times before and after without anything happening, so that was exciting! I thought that he had made the connection to being able to make himself pee in the potty, but it may have just been a fluke.  Since I don't remember my own potty training experience and can't remember what it was like not to be able to pee in the potty, I'm not sure how to help him understand! (hmm...kind of like how it's hard to help students with something that came easily to me).

Anyway, I've been intimidated by the unknown of this whole potty training deal, but today's the day! We'll see how it goes! (and I'll let you know!)

After a long hiatus...

So, the other day I thought that it might be good to do a blog on some of the fun that we've been up to this summer. I remember I had secured the handle "Share the Adventure" on Wordpress, but I had totally forgotten that I had written 7 posts! Wow! It was a complete surprise (I thought I had written maybe one or two), and I LOVED reading about baby Carter (seems so long ago) especially since baby Calvin is about the age Carter was in my posts. I had been having a hard time remembering what Carter was like when he was this little, so it was fun to reminisce and to compare my two boys.  For instance, they both like shoving their whole fists in their mouths. :-)

So many things are different from my posts two years ago!

• (as I mentioned above), we added a new baby in February


• Carter has learned to crawl, walk, and now talk


• I'm two jobs removed from my Boys and Girls Club job (now teaching music and technology)


• I (barely) survived my first year of teaching


• We bought our first home and love it!


• I have even less time to paint and create, but I'm still finding time to be crafty!


• I'm in a different life group.


• and on and on

Right now, I'm sitting on our couch on a quiet (for now) morning on a rare sleep-in day for the 3 fellas in the house (it's 8:24 a.m.). I am SO not a morning person, but I've found that my days go so much better when I wake up and get myself centered before everyone else wakes up.  So, after I fed Calvin at 6:30, I stayed up (because that's so much better than waking up to an alarm -- I'm an expert at hitting the snooze button).  When I am still drowsy, I get on the computer so that I won't fall back asleep.  This morning, I got an e-mail about the specials schedule for my school this year which was very different than I had expected, so I've been looking that over and e-mailing my principal, and here I am, still on the computer.  This is my one time on the computer today (otherwise I'll get sucked into Facebook and Pinterest, especially on Lucas' phone. No smart phone for me -- I'd be too addicted!). I say this as if it's some well-established routine; I'm maybe on Day 4 of this plan. Anyway, since this blog is mostly for me, I can write whatever! And as I was reading old posts, I enjoyed the little day-to-day details that at the time, didn't seem very interesting.

On the docket today:

-hopefully making an early, quick run to Wal-Mart this morning

-Ethan and Melissa Tibbs are coming over for a play date!

-We're heading to Evans Orchard for Evan (Bruckman)'s birthday (hence the quick trip to Wal-Mart for a gift!)

-maybe a shower if I'm lucky (good thing I've never been much into showering)

-working on my cleaning/organizing projects -- our bedroom, the laundry room

-celebrating Lucas' completion of another issue of his magazine (oh, that's another new development since two years ago)

 

I'm surprised that the boys are still sleeping. Lucas was up really late working. Calvin cluster feeds at night and sleeps more during the day. Carter was up late at a swim party for our school (it's fun to say "our" school -- he's in the 2-year-old program at my school this year).

I guess I'll end this for now. I really do plan on posting on this more often, but I know many people have said that before (sigh - I'm one of them).