Ugh. I'm very sorry to hear that, Pilotman. Brings back some bad memories for me. :(

For me as well (mentioned upthread somewhere). Sorry to hear about what happened. He's got some prayers coming.

That is rough, PM. I'm glad to hear that your son is on the mend!

Sorry that I haven't been around much lately. It seems like there has been so much going on of late.

Last month, Lucy turned 1, and we had a little party for her. It was threatening to rain and it did sprinkle a little, so not a whole lot of people showed up. That was probably just as well. Lucy did really well; she is doing so much better around other people. It was also really good that my mom and Tony's parents came to our apartment for the party (they hadn't been here since she was a few weeks old). Lucy was soooo much more comfortable and willing to interact with everybody. Singing “Happy Birthday” kind of freaked her out, but she regained her composure and then gave and in-depth explanation about, well, something. Overall, a good day was had by all.

I don’t even remember when I updated anything last, but Lucy is walking (and trying to run), trying to climb on everything that is under a foot tall, and she still has just one, lonely chomper.

We are also going to be moving in the foreseeable future! Tony got a promotion/transfer to a town that is about an hour from where we are now so he is commuting, but we want to get somewhere closer. We’ve made several trips to the area house-hunting, and Lucy has really been a trooper.

We are hoping to have a house on few acres, maybe to have a few animals, including my horse (who’s currently living at my mom’s). While I’m looking forward to having Ben right there, don’t think that it hasn’t crossed my mind all the scenarios of having a toddler near a horse.

Between house-hunting and starting our own mini-ranch, I’m sure that there is fodder for a dynasty, but I’m not sure I’d do all that great a job of keeping it updated right now. Maybe soon… Until then, visit beaches.com! :D That is classic, Wolfpack!

That must have been really scary! I'll have tiny in my thoughts PM :(

Sorry I never got around to posting this.


Introducing Noah William Brown. Born on July 13th, will be 8 weeks this Thursday. Was 8 lbs 1 oz and 20 1/2 in.

Vex: Congrats! Way to go!

congrats!!! :)

congrats Will but tell me this, the little thing is not even two months old and there you are, staying late at night playing a network game of FM2006??? Woah, you're a tougher man than I ;)

FM

Aww... what a cutie Vex! Grats :)

Adorable baby, congrats Vex.

He was actually spending the night at his grandparents, so it worked out well:)

From a blog my wife enjoys reading:

Thanks for sharing that, I thought it was really sweet. I've printed it and given it to a couple of people dealing with kiddos along that age, as well as my wife. Matthew is just about that age and he is just like that, so similar...

Speaking of Matty, I've put a little video of him spinning his big brother's bo in our backyard. I was practicing, fooling around with my own bo more than anything when my wife thought it would be cool to have him come out and "practice" with me... It was indeed cool :)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v3...t=100_5960.flv

FM

almost lost your family jewels there, frogman!

balls of steel man, balls of steel. One of the thing they teach us, take one in the balls like a man, just so you can defend yourself properly. :D

FM

Ean is healing well since he had his stiches taken out. Our doctor says that it could't be any better. He seems to be back to normal. In the meantime Zachary decided that his brother was getting to much attention. While we were at the gym he was not listening to Dad and running around and he lost his balance and fell into the corner of a counter. Off to the emergency room again and 3 hours and 4 stiches under his left eye later we were home. He is healing well too. That is the 4th time that he had stiches in his head. He did really well for the doctor and didn't need to be held and was chatting with the doctor while he was doing it.

Here is another saying that you should never need to tell your kids (but was heard in my house this week): "Don't stick a screwdriver in the dog's butt."

Beautiful baby Vex, congrats!

Congrats, vex!!!! :)

I love this line:

That is so true...

Gah. We just got a dog this pass week. I have a feeling that sentence will soon be uttered in our house.

James and Catherine are going to be 18 months old at the end of this month. They're finally getting around to talking, although Catherine's big word is "No."

I also recently changed times for my talk show, so I've been getting to spend a lot more time with the kids since I don't have to go into work until 4:30 p.m. It's been wonderful getting to play with them all day, although I think they're getting a little spoiled by all the attention. At least Catherine is. James is his own little guy... content to play by himself and come over to you every now and then to climb up in your lap.

The big question is whether or not our 15 year old will buckle down in school this year. I've already warned him that life will be very difficult if his progress reports don't look good.

Tonight, my ex called me to let me know how a parent-teacher conference went. Basically, they have been trying to get Matthew labeled with a learning disability without any formal testing. We sent him to see a specialist (a neurologist who specializes in learning disabilities) and he thinks Matthew is gifted and not a disability.

During the conference, they have been trying to convince my ex to allow them to put him on a IEP without a formal diagnosis or any testing. They were pissed because they now have to give assessment tests to determine if he has any cognitive problems. I told her to stay the course and not let those bastards try to label him without doing any of these things first.

I feel blessed that we have people like the neurologist who will stand up to schools that try to label children because they don't fit their idea of what a "good" student is. I think it's deplorable that we even have to go through this nonsense to make sure he is not improperly labeled.

So, I have an odd contribution to this discusssion.

It seems... without realizing it... that Mrs Q and I have cursed our daughter with an un-pronouncable name. *sigh*

We had several different boy or girl names in mind when she was born, we spent a few hours with her, and ultimately settled on the name Elisa -- it's a once-common derivative of Elizabeth, and appears in many baby name books with allusions to reasonably wide use in French, Spanish, and Italian. I have known a couple people with the name, always thought it was pretty, and it seemed like the best fit among our various contenders once we got a chance to meet our baby girl.

So, fast forward to now. She's nearing ten months, and it's perfectly clear -- almost nobody seems to be able to "get it." The name is, incidentally, pronounced like eh-LEE-sah. Instead, we get lots of things that sound like Alyssa, Eliza, Elsa, Eleeza, and I don't know what else.

I know there are bigger issues to worry about -- but have we cursed our daughter to live with a name that her friends and teachers will get wrong for her entire childhood? It honestly hadn't even occured to us before we started seeing so many of our friends and family stumble on the name. *sigh*

Sure looks like it. FTR, before I got to your pronunciation of it, I thought it was either the way you pronounce it, or Eliza, or Eleeza. I think the problem is that there are several different ways you could pronounce it, which causes the issue. It probably isn't your fault, per se, but rather the fact that slightly different/derivative names are pronounced in multiple ways. So, this name seems to be a combination of those different names, resulting in confusion for others. Also, I'm sure that somewhere, there is a child named Elisa whose parents pronounce it differently than you.

We have a somewhat similar problem with our last name - there are 3 different ways to pronounce it, and I prefer the "middle of the road" variation, but living in the south, I have always had to put up with the "long A" variation. I've just learned to live with it, correcting it where it was possible but not bothering with it in most situations.

Interesting post, QS. My wife is starting to tell me names for our potential daughter, which is a nice step as I've been ready for kids for a year or so and she feels like she isn't ready, but I see this as moving towards being ready..

Anyway, she told me 4 potential names today and they all run the risk of causing that exact problem, and people already butcher my last name routinely.

I actually read it correctly before you did it your phonetic way. I think it's just something she'll get used to over time. as will the people saying it. we named our daughter Mckinley, but people are always wanting to put a capital "k" in there. I also go by my middle name. always have my entire life, except for the tax man, insurance man, and dr.'s offices can't seem to figure it out so I just get used to it there too and have to remember when they call, say, mail me something with my first name that it's really for me.

Our two daughters' names are Caitlin and Mackenzie. No pronunciation problems, but the varied spellings are killing us. We struggled with which ones to go with for months before they were born and decided to stick with the basic.

you just said it, "allusions to reasonably wide use in French, Spanish, and Italian". It's a very nice name, just not an English-only one. "eh-LEE-zah" is how it should be in French as an "s" in between two vowels becomes a "z". She might probably have to repeat her name a few times as she grows up, but that's a beautiful name that sounds as if it's pulling its root from many different other languages.

As a side not, sadly, as cute as I think it sounds in the "eh-LEE-sah" way (or even "eh-LEE-zah") this one would have been banned by my wife and I as people in Quebec have a sad tendency to end the "hah" in a "haw" way that is not as cute.

FM

My daughter had me in tears today.

She and I were discussing going to L.A. sometime soon, but I told her we couldn't afford it because we don't have the $$ right now.

So I went to the store and when I came back she said, "Mommy, I have a surprise for you... it's on your computer desk". So I come to my desk and I find a bunch of change and she said, "I got this from my piggybank so you can go to L.A., is it enough?" And I said, "Aww baby, I would need about 300 times that amount. Thanks but this is your hard earned money, I can't take it." And she left to her room. I went in a few minutes later and her eyes were red with tears and she said, "I'm sorry mommy, but I wanted to help you go to L.A. and I wanted Landon and I to go too" and she started crying. I was in tears! Hell, I'm in tears just talking about it... what a thoughtful thing for a 6 year old to do. I told her that what her thoughtfulness was worth more than any money I could ever get and I hugged her all teary eyed.

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

agreed, very touching story dodgerchick.

Christmas does bring a lot of funny stories too. Matthew, who will turn 3 in mid-January, was playing in the hallway last Wednesday when I went downstairs to start a fire in the woodstove. I heard him call out "Daddy, where are you?" and I replied that I was downstairs. He asked what I was doing and I replied that I was starting a fire. He often likes coming down and tear newspaper to help me, or bring some little pieces of wood to start it off but this time, instead of his usual "oh wait I wanna help!", he screamed as heavy a "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" as he could. I walked up the stairs to see what this was about and he kept on going, his eyes all teary, breathing hard "you're gonna burn Santa *snif* when *snif* he's *snif* gonna come down the chimney!!!!". I couldn't help but smile, poor kiddo worried about burning Santa. :)

I ended up telling him that Santa was not ready to come yet, that it was okay and that he would only come when we leave him some cookies and milk. So tomorrow night, I'll make a big show of having him prepare some cookies and a class of milk and there won't be any fire in the chimney tomorrow night. ;)

FM

Tomorrow night?

yeah, well, we don't do the physical impersonation of Santa, simply keep the myth around him and we like having the kids see the gifts maybe a day before we actually unwrap them. Since we will unwrap the gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner, tonight is as good a night as any other to load the bottom of the Christmas tree with gifts so they can wonder what's in all these boxes for a day and a half. :)

FM

Awww... cute story :)

Me too...

I have three kids, two boys 7 (yes, twins) and a daughter age 3.

I have TONS of stories, like most of you and, like most of you, love them dearly.

My daughter is going through the "dance with me" phase, which I love. Anytime Dora or anything is on that she is watching, I will need to come over and dance with her until the music is done. Trying to enjoy this stage before she starts to hate me (I know, a while down the road).

Oh, and according to her, we now have to duck when we drive under bridges. Lord knows who taught her that, but it is cute.

I try *very, very* hard to not play favorites, but I must admit that, as a father, Amber (my daugher) is my favorite.

They have had me near tears many times in events similar to the one Dodgerchick shared above. I don't know of anything in else in life that affects a persons heart like kids do.

Dola

And it about broke my heart last night. The kids are all staying over at Grandma and Grandpa's last night and today. I got a call late last night. Amber was crying saying "I want daddy". I talked to her for a bit and she just kept saying "alright" while she was crying. It was all I could do to not run over and pick her up.

Aww... how cute! Sounds like you and your daughter have a very special relationship. Our daughter likes following me around and I get annoyed at times, but then I stop to think that she actually WANTS to hang out with me and it will change once she gets older.

We're toying with the idea of sending out some shots of our youngest for modeling opportunities. Anyone had any experience with this sort of thing?

Honestly, I have no interest in the Jon Benet Ramsey-ish lifestyle for my kids, but our youngest gets so many comments that my wife and I have wondered whether we ought to see if she could get into modeling clothes or doing commercials or something. Of course, we think she's a little cutie, but her curly blonde hair and blue eyes almost always elicit some kind of response from strangers.

How do people get their kids into that kind of thing?

I wish I'd seen this thread earlier... I spent most of this morning reading through this entire thread and it's a great read. Makes you feel like you are not alone in the world of parenting.

I am a father of three boys, ages 18, 13 and 10 weeks. :) The 18 and 13 year old are my step-children and I have been with them for 11 years now so it's like they are my kids anyway.

Last year at the age of 37 I finally became a daddy to a newborn son on October 23rd. I've never experienced the newborn stage so this is an eye opening experience for me.

I've come to the conclusion that taking care of a newborn has got to be like taking care of astronauts. Just getting them into the vehicle alone takes FOREVER with all of the straps and buckles. Everything is so time consuming it's funny. I love every bit of it and am having a blast.

My wife is not good about documenting things so I decided to blog about the pregnancy for friends and family with weekly updates on what happens, how we feel and stuff like that. I have carried that over to blog the first year of my sons life and what we go through on a weekly basis with him and I'm glad I've done it. It's great to go back and read some of the things I was feeling before he was born.

My 18 year old son is in college and doing great. He is the "quiet one" and is really close to him mother. The 13 year old is an ADHD kid that takes after me. We are best friends and have a blast together no matter what we are doing. Living with ADHD is a pain when it comes to school and how we handle his grades which are terrible. He's a smart kid, just can't get his work done.

Anywya, just wanted to get my introduction to the parent group outta the way.

Had to chuckle at this one. My son went through that stage...it was cute for awhile, but on longer trips it got old rather quick. "Uh, Drew? On this highway, the policeman says we don't have to duck under the overpasses."

Welcome aboard! So how is the 13-year-old liking the baby life?

He loves it. He is happy that he isn't the "baby" anymore and very excited about being an older brother. *sigh of relief*

I was worried that he would feel left out now that another boy had come along but things are good so far.

Our 2 year old (Landon) is an interesting kid. He's developed a bit slower than our daughter in almost all aspects, but he's like a genius in other ways. Our daughter (Larissa) used to speak very very well at the age Landon is now. He understands what we tell him, but he pretends he doesn't. He doesn't speak like we want him to, but he knows all the letters of the alphabet.

Anyway, the kid is anal retentive... I mean bigtime. We bought him those letters that have magnets on the back and he plays with them hours at a time making circles out of them or putting them in a STRAIGHT line. When I mean straight, I mean they have to be perfectly aligned or he goes mad. Well since the only thing he knows how to say are letters, when he gets mad he screams the alphabet!! "ABCDEFGGGGGGGG!!!!!" or sometimes it's just one leter, "DDDDDDDDDD!!!!!"

We need to record him because when he gets older he'll never believe us.

We started our 2 year old in a once-a-week mothers' day out program at a church yesterday. She's a little blond-haired, blue-eyed cutie that everyone always comments about how she's going to be some knock-out as she gets older. Mostly, I just block it out and pretend not to hear it.

Anyway, I get home from work last night and start asking her what she did at school, and she says, "I played with the boys and colored and had snack." So I responded, "You played with the boys? Did you play with any girls, too?" And she says, "No, just the boys."

I'm in BIG trouble...!

We just got tickets to see The Wiggles in Louisville at the end of February. Should be interesting to see how they deal with Greg's departure, although when we saw them early last year in Florida, Greg didn't tour due to surgery and they pulled it off fine. But now, it's no longer temporary.

this one will make our resident doctor smile...

Matthew just turned 3 last Monday. Yesterday, he had a checkup appointment with his pedatrician, you know the usual once a year thing. I was the one appointed by my wife to go with him, and to be honest, I was not really looking forward to it. Every time we'd been to the pedatrician, Matty has been a crying machine. Despite the pediatrician being the a very gentle man and him trying everything to take the edge off Matty, nothing could be done. The minute we walked through the door, Matty would start whining first, then go into full crying mode as soon as we'd approach the examination table.

I had a special ammunition this time, thanks to Santa. Yep, Matty received a toy doctor case full with everything one needs to play doctor. He's examined us plenty of times, from checking pulse, temperature, giving vaccines and even checking reflexes with that little hammer.

I decided to bring the little case along in his bag, just in case. We got to the doctor's office, walk in the door as I kept talking to Matty about how the doctor will simply check him out. We went through the whole thing with Matty not once whining, just like a big boy would do.

Come to the end, the doctor has weighed and measure him and he pats Matty on the head and tell him that it's over, he can go get dressed now. I'm close to him now and I take his hand to get him to the examination table to dress him and he goes "but my reflexes?". I ask what he said, just as the doctor asks too and he repeats "but my reflexes, you didn't check them". Both me and the doctor burst into laughter and he got his little hammer and checked Matty's reflexes. Cute kiddo... :)

FM

My middle son (Travis) was like that when he was 2 years old. He would not talk much and if he wanted something he would point and kind of grunt (much like his father -- remember, I'm his step-dad). He was very intense about how his toys and things were setup in his room. Things needed to be perfect or there was trouble.

I made a point of taking pictures of him freaking out or acting silly like that knowing that when he was older it would be funny. We just pulled a ton of pictures out boxes this week and have been going through them and laughing non-stop.

:D

I just read this to Antmeister and we were laughing, you have described our son to a T. He'll point and grunt if he needs anything. I try to get him to say banana but he just points. If I tell him, no you can't have a banana, he understands but he won't say it.

Awww... kids say the cutest things!

When Drew was two he used to do what we dubbed "bears on chairs." He'd take his stuffed beanie bears and spend 15-20 minutes arranging them on his little kid seat.

Noah at 5 1/2 months at Christmas time. :)

Here's a picture of his letters in the shape of a snake:



And here are some batteries that he put in some kind of order (looks like small battery, big battery, small battery, big battery...)



I need to take more pictures of this and create a section in my Picasa Album (shameless plug I know).

Vex: Great picture!

Dodgerchick: lol! Those photos remind me of Travis so much. Everything was always in a pattern like that! He would eat cereal without milk, and always pick shapes of cereal he liked and then organize them into a pattern on the table.

Here is a pic of my little guy @ 3 months old, getting ready for a trip in the snow.

Zachary, my 4 almost 5 yr old was bored one day since he was grounded from the leapster and the TV, and he decided to write a book with mom. It was a great idea. He had the whole plotline set out and pictures to boot. However, he became frustrated and gave the project up when his book wasn't "square enough". That my friends, is my anal/perfectionist little boy.

So, yeah....

My 3 year old finally started to pee in the potty, after much prodding. She does it like a champ anymore. However, girl cannot shit in the toilet to save her life, and I'm tired of soiled panties/pants(not such a big deal) and random dumps on the floor(making me fucking furious, even if I know it wasn't intentional). Now I don't know whether to go back to diapers or pullups, or hope that she figures this out within the next week or so. I'm tired of breaking out the rug cleaner.

Been a while since I've caught up on this thread, but some great stories on here.

Ksyrup is going to need a big yard and a big shovel, I suspect. ;)


FM, I loved your story.


Great stuff in this thread :)

I've got both, and about 4 inches of snow right now to help cover things up!

I feel your pain, for what it's worth. Add the fact that I don't do well with cleaning up shit anyway (*gag*).

I'm curious if you've tried any reward offers, or other strategies. Don't laugh, but we had my son Drew get the hang of it with what my wife and I called the "poop train." It was a set of small plastic train engines from a dominoes game - I think there were 8 - and if Drew pooped on the pot "like a big boy" we added an engine to the train. When he completed all 8, he got a toy and mucho congrats. Obviously, you can pick whatever little thing would work for your daughter (plastic animals might work).

Anyway, good luck!

I love my teenager. What part of don't touch your 360 or laptop don't you understand????

We used a similar reward tactic with our oldest, developing the "Poo-poo" chart, whereupon if she did #2 in the proper location, she'd be rewarded with a "strawberry" (a cutout of one, anyway). If she collected five, we'd reward her with something (the rewarding and strawberries petered out after a couple of weeks, though the chart is still on the bathroom door). At this point, it looks like the habit has finally taken hold because we haven't had a major accident in some time now. The last frontier of potty-training: nighttime. She's still wearing pull-ups right now at night, but otherwise we seem to be finally out of the daytime accident stage (though my wife has warned me that kids do regress a little when they're 4 or 5 before going forward again).

We're trying the incentive thing with our 2 year old and so far it hasn't worked. But she won't be 3 until May, so we're hoping she'll eventually want to start using the potty on her on during the next 3 months, and if not, we're going to get more aggressive about encouraging her.

The other issue we have to deal with is her pacifier.

Thanks for the information guys. Ibnsgirl and I are going to try and start with Lucy (19 mo) soon. We bought a seat, and we'll see how she gets the hang of things. I'll keep you all informed.

My son just hit the 5 month old mark and I am both happy and a little sad at the same time.

It's exciting to watch him change almost over night and see all of the changes, but sad because I feel like I missed something. It's tough to explain.

I know I have not missed anything because I work from home and I see him more than most fathers so maybe it's just the fear that he is growing up so damn fast. Did any of you go through this when your kids were this young?

---

I picked up a solid 20lbs of sympathy fat during my wifes pregnancy and am going to start getting back into shape. I am currently at 190lbs and holding and plan to lose 15-20 from here until the end of the summer.


Time to start a weight loss dynasty or join one in progress!

How are the rest of the parents doing out there?

Our 2 year old is really starting a break-through with the potty training. Four times on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. Only problem we're having is that she won't poop on the potty. 6-8 months ago, she tried it and apparently was still going or it was stuck to her butt or something, and when she stood up a piece fell off and landed on her foot. Since then, she refuses to try. Everytime I mention it to her, she mumbles something while shaking her head and I can hear "fall" and "foot" in there somewhere. It's going from cute to possible problem.

She has gone off-the-wall crazy for Dora and Diego. Everything is about them right now. Those are the rewards we have been giving her when she reaches certain milestones with her potty training. One funny/annoying thing is that she calls Diego "Diewogo" because the show is called Go Diego Go, and she apparently thinks the last "go" is part of his name. Now that we're correcting her, I think she understands but is getting a kick out of annoying us.

update

Mine finally figured out when to dump in the toilet, so I am happy. I wish she would stop wasting so much toilet paper, but I guess I can deal with that. I think her problem was something intestineally possibly, where i think she was maybe a bit backed up. I gave her some prune juice and stepped up her fibre intake quite a bit, and I think that helped. I'm happy now that i don't have to buy diapers, and don't have to deal with random shit accidents.

dola-

Never had to deal with the pacifier much cause we took it away at like 6 months. Yeah, i probably wouldn't try to wage battle with her on that until you get her toilet stuff taken care of.

Our first daughter had major issues with pooping, too. She would hold it in until it hurt, for some reason. We never quite figured out why, because we don't recall her ever having a traumatic experience or anything that would have brought on the behavior, but we would have major fights with her, even when she was still using a diaper, just to get her to "release." She would stand still, her face turning purple while trying to keep from going. It was almost comical, in a sense, but majorly frustrating. When she started to use the toilet, she would actually clog the damn thing about 100 times more often than an adult, because when she finally went, it was a MONSTER.

OK, I'm done talking crap now.

Unfortunately, my wife was right. My daughter's taken a little bit of a step backwards from fully potty-trained to mostly potty-trained. She's started having accidents again, though nothing too serious. I speculate that she got too "confident" if you will, in understanding her own body and the signals it sends that she started ignoring thsoe signals reasoning that whatever she was doing was more important and she's got time to get to the potty. Back to cajoling and small bribes again.

Our youngest (11 mos) has started figuring out how to clap and is developing quite the humorous personality. Next big thing looks to be walking. She's lightning fast on all fours now, though. She'll probably be the athlete of the two while the older one may be the more bookish artist.

Missed all of the toilet training issues, my daughter seemed to do well. It was one of the few things my ex did right. My daughter is now six and never had an issue (training pants were off last year, nights seemed to be a difficulty).

That being said, my daughter has messed up teeth. This was one thing my ex failed to understand and so a recent dental exam showed the need for four caps, 7 fillings and 2 root canals! So I'm worried now for my daughter's sake.

On top of this, my ex is leaving husband #2 (I was a boyfriend, nothing more). It's amazing that at 27 she's gone through 2 husbands, and is currently eyeing up a married man (possibly husband #3). So I'm worried for Zia's psyche, but the good news is that my ex plans to leave me to raise my daughter once she leaves her husband (she'll live in the area so as to get our daughter the proper residency). I bought a new house and I'm hoping that some stability in my daughter's life will help even if it has an expiration date.

On top of all of this, I have a new girlfriend, it's been six months, she's wonderful and likes my daughter much (and my daughter likes her much). Plus a new job for me that has me doing well, and I'm hoping the stormclouds are finally gone (for now).

Since we are talking crap...

Our daughter is about 2 1/2...and we were making OK progress. She likes the idea of being in the bathroom, and is intrigued with the potty chair and toilet...actually using them is different. Plus, she regressed with her brother (6 months), which I guess is something that happens often.

She too sometimes has issues, even with diapers...she'll sort of "hold back"...then struggle the next day. So we've got a backup supply of Miralax the doctor recommended mixing a little dash in with her juice or milk.

Anyway...about 2 weeks ago, it was bath night. Got the baby done, handed him to my wife, and got Lucy in the bathtub. She wanted bubble bath, so add that, get her washed, and she'll "swim" around for 20-30 minutes.

So I'll get her stuff ready to change, etc...and walk in and out to check on her. She is laying really still when I walk back in, so I ask "What are you doing honey?"

"Poopin'" (grunt)

"WHAT!?"

"hee hee...Poopin!"

So, it was sort of like a scavenger hunt, with all kinds of bath toys and the bubbles. You know you are a parent when I was proud of myself for finding the prize.

I look forward to sharing my stories in about 8 months or so. I am pretty excited :)

http://www.starfall.com/ is a great to get the kids ready to read. Our 2 and 6 year olds are on there all the time

Not really looking forward to potty training...

I missed a little window of opportunity a few weeks ago. Tony and I got a potty seat for 20 month old Lucy because she was doing a pretty good job of letting us know she needed a diaper before she actually did. She was just getting comfortable with sitting on it, when Tony had to leave for a two-week business trip. Lucy then takes her cue that this would be a great time to start in with the "No's." For two weeks, all I hear is "no" to everything (and while it has been a lot less frequent lately, it is still there).

Soooo, the potty seat is sidelined for a while. In fact, with baby #2's imminent arrival, who knows how long it will be.

If anything, I'm much more worried about the whole pacifier issue. Right now, Lucy uses it when she is in the carseat for more than about 10 minutes. Otherwise, as long as she doesn't see it, she is perfectly fine without it. If she sees her baby brother with one, though, I'm not sure how that is going to work.

Our now-3-year old is really doing well at peeing, but still not much pooping. Last night I caught her, ferret-like, sitting quietly in the corner of her playroom and realized she was about to go in her pants. So after trying to get her to come with me into the bathroom, I grabbed her, kicking and screaming, to the bathroom and pulled off her diaper so she'd have no other choice but to sit on the potty.

As I mentioned before, she had an issue with a piece of poop falling on her foot which seems to have scarred her. So last night, as she's sitting there, she got really whiny and worried about pooping on the potty, and she reached her legs out and said, "Daddy, hide my toes! Hide my toes!" Apparently she was scared that the poop would fall on her foot again. So I had to cover up her toes with my hands while she pooped. After it was over, she was fine, and of course we showered her with praise, but damn that was funny. It was all I could do to not laugh during that. I mean, I felt bad for her because I could tell she was honestly scared about it, but at the same time, the whole thing was hilarious.

Keeping with the poop theme... last weekend my wife put the twins down for their nap and took off their pants since their room was kind of stuffy.

A few hours later my oldest daughter comes out of the house and tells us we need to get upstairs right away. The stench hit us at the top of the stairs before we even got to his room. James had pooped in his diaper, taken it off, and proceeded to smear the crap on his crib, himself, and his sheets (not the walls thank goodness). Ugh.

You rookies! Haven't had to deal with poop and pee issues in a long, long time.

Cam's story reminded me of one of his own. I remember when my oldest was potty training. At night he still wore a diaper. He had graduated from sleeping in his crib to a twin bed and since his room was upstairs, we put a gate across the doorway so if he woke up in the middle of the night, he didn't go wandering and accidently fall down the stairs. Anyway, my wife and some friends of ours are downstairs in the kitchen, and we hear him ratting around upstairs in his room, so I go up to check on him. He's standing at the gate and his diaper is off and on the floor filled with poop. He's picking up each piece and pushing them through the holes in the wires of the gate. It was so gross. But he sees me, gets this big smile on his face and continues his business. I just busted out laughing, even though cleaning up the mess wasn't much fun.

About a month ago, my wife picked up my 2 year old son from daycare and he had a couple of bites on him. The teacher in his room explained that during recess they saw him squatting and looking at something on the ground. He does this quite a bit, but they noticed that he kept poking at something and saying "Ow!"

They go up to him and check to see what is doing. He found an anthill and was squashing fire ants and going "Ow!" when they bit him.

So the daycare kills the hill and everything is fine, right?

Today we get a call, they are having "Splash Day" which is out in the parking lot. They have water slides, little pools, etc. My son calls over one of the other kids and they are both doing the same thing! He found another fire ant hill and was squashing the ants, saying "Ow!" each time he got bit! So was the little girl.

I know it sucks, but I can't help but smile because I can completely picture this one doing it!

Our 6 year old likes to stomp on them and watch them go crazy in anger. We need to have some bread ready next time so we can watch them rip it apart.

dola,

We found out today that one of Ant's cousins passed away. A few weeks ago his grandma passed away so his mom has been pretty down. I'm not sure if you guys know this but our 3 year old doesn't speak very well. Anyway, I was on the phone with Antmeister and when I hung up, I left the phone on the counter and our son looks at it and says, "Grandma". I was pretty shocked so I decided to call her. It's a good thing I did because she was pretty down and when she heard Landon say "Grandma", it took her by surprise and her mood went from utter sadness, to pure joy.

Weird how kids have this intuition. He seems to know when I'm upset too cuz he comes up to me and smothers me in kisses. Gotta love him.

Lucy, our 2 year old is afraid of bugs, but isn't afraid to squash them. She'll point at it and say ugly bug (although it sounds more like uggie bug). Cute none-the-less. She's gotten to the point where she'll describe her mood. When she bonks her self on a table, chair, etc and she's crying she'll go off saying Lucy crying until she stops. When she's happy she'll say Lucy happy or Lucy laughing. It's cute and helps a lot when trying to figure out if she needs anything.

Lucy loves the phone. Recently Ibnsgirl and I bought new cell phones so we gave Lucy the old ones (not charged - don't want her calling 911 or anything). She'll sit there pretending she's on the phone talking away saying Grapa (my dad), Grama (my mom) or Grammy (Ibnsgirl's mom). While I'm at work, I'll talk to her a bit, and as soon as she gets on she'll say it daddy. Of course, don't know how bad it will be when she reaches the teen/phone age.

Wish us luck, tonight we are camping out at the zoo. It's a special thing for kids (not cheap, either - it better be good!). I'll post a report later.

Well Coug, how did it go?

cougars ate one of their own? :D

FM

Oh geez... We went camping three weeks ago. The first event was pretty damn funny...

My two year old is getting cranky so we send him into the tent to take a nap. My wife goes in to check on him, and the little one had opened my shaving kit (had no razors or anything dangerous in it) and pulled out my toothbrush. He looks up at my wife, who asked him what he was doing, pointed to his feet, and said, "Clean feet mommy, clean feet!" He then started brushing his feet with my toothbrush!

Later that night, my 5 year old decided to see how hot a propane lantern was by grabbing the darn thing. I felt terrible because I could have stopped him, but I thought he was getting a snack which was next to the lantern. Thankfully, he wasn't severely burned, but we still needed to pack up and drive home at 10 at night.

This is going to end up more of a vent than anything productive but...

We are going through sort of a rough patch. Lucy is 3 1/2 now, Sam is 16 months. Lucy is really testing our patience over the last 3 weeks or so. I guess it part of what 3 year olds do, but these mood swings are killer.

She'll go from playing fine, to evil in 3 seconds flat. Or when asked to do something simple (bath time for example, which she used to love) it turns into a war. The number of times I've bathed her with her standing up in the last few weeks is too many to count. She wails the entire time, we get out, dry off, pajamas on, and I tell her maybe she should spend some time in her room--which she readily complies. Then 15 minutes later, she'll come downstairs, and it's like nothing ever happened. She's in the best of moods and we are good for hours.

We can't really pinpoint where, or why, the tantrums are coming from. Like I said, things she used to love, she'll tell us she wants no part of. Then changes her tune 10 minutes later.

That is all...just wanted that off my chest.

She's 3. Our just-turned-five-year-old is doing similar things. They will CONSTANTLY test boundaries, and you just need to be firm on where they are. It helps to find something they DON'T like: our daughter hates to be alone in her room, and I check on her just enough to make sure she's not pulling out toys and playing when I want her spending 5 minutes on the bed. If your daughter is going "OK" when you send her to her room as a punishment, you need to find something else.

When you have those tough battles of will, and the kid finally caves (and my daughter actually apologized after a really bad day on Tuesday with her yelling at a teacher, fighting with two friends, refusing bath, etc after my wife played hardball with her on privileges) it's a great feeling. Keep up the good fight.

It's probably her being a three-year-old. Our four-year-old has some of the same features, but in true Spinal Tap fashion, they all go up to 11. Bathtime isn't much of a problem, bedtime sometimes is, but it's the total crapshoot of her emotional state that wears on us. Sometimes we're able to get her to disengage from what she's doing fine, but there are other times when doing so would make her think you were absolutely destroying her world. She's also recently developed (for a lack of a better term) an attitude, though we're not sure where this came from. This usually is in the form of raspberry blowing or some snide tone to her voice in response to something we're saying or doing. We're usually pretty patient parents and can put up with a lot from her, but this new stuff she's doing is hitting all the wrong buttons with both of us. I don't know if it's a combination of her verbal and intellectual abilities mixed up with a dose of her rather volatile emotions, but I swear I feel like I'm getting a good picture of what life will be like in ten years. The only thing missing is any sort of teen lingo.

It's sort of weird...she'll fight it if we are downstairs, and I send her up to her room. But, it's almost like she knows she needs those 15 mins to calm herself down.

Also funny, we are semi-guilty of bribing her with "we can do this and that, after you do __________." And she'll start with "I hate _______!!"

But an hour later, she'll remember what was offered, and do what was originally asked (bath, eat dinner, sit on the potty, whatever) and bring up "You said we'd play Candyland!" And she'll apologize, although I know she's saying it solely because we've told her to say it in the past, and she feels she is supposed to say it, whatever it means.

I hope she outgrows it before our son starts picking up on it.

An update and a story-

From my previous posts, Lucy has dramatically changed in the last week. Still some whining, but nowhere near the meltdowns she was having earlier.

One day last week, just one of those days at work. So I wasn't home til about 6:30 (usually home around 5:00). So ate really quick, and we gave the kids baths. Afterwards, changed into a sweatshirt and shorts, and grabbed a pair of white socks.

Get downstairs and put them on, and notice a huge hole in the heel of one of them...and Lucy notices too.

Lucy: "Daddy...what is that? Why do you have a hole in your sock?!"
Me: "Daddy is too poor to buy new socks...and Mommy won't buy me any!!"

(This is greeted with :rolleyes: from Mommy)

Lucy: "OhhhhhhhhhhhhDaddy! It's OK!" and comes over to give me a hug.

Fastforward, later in the night, Sammy gets a hold of Lucy's piggy bank (no idea why it was downstairs) and launches it to the kitchen floor. He's cracking up "Money money!!"

I tell Lucy we'll get her a new one, and pick up all the change and put it in a Ziploc bag. I take it out to her in the living room and joke "Wow...you have a lot of money in here, what are going to do with all of that?"

Anyone see where this is going--

"I'm going to buy you some socks Daddy!!"

Long time listener, first time caller.

My wife and I have a daughter, Emma, who will be two years old in May and we are expecting our second child sometime in mid-June...as you can imagine, I'm starting to get a little nervous. Aside from all the work I have ahead of me to prepare for the new arrival (clear out stuff in the basement into the garage, get new baby's room ready, and all of my regular spring jobs!! YIKES!!!) my wife and I are starting to get a little worried about what we've gotten ourselves into. Moreso her because she'll be home with the two kids. Anyway, that's the short version of our situation...and, yes, I'm sure we'll be just fine but that doesn't mean we won't go crazy thinking otherwise!!

Potty training...worth giving it a try this early or just a waste of time and energy? I realize every kid is different but I can't help but wonder if having my daughter be a little more indendant will help my wife cope with having a toddler and a newborn to handle. Part of me says yes, but part of me also says no. Any thoughts?

Nap time...Emma has been fighting naps for probably three weeks now. Prior to this stretch, she's been a pretty good napper going down for about 1.5 hours every afternoon. She hasn't had two naps a day for quite some time. Now, it's not like she's crying or anything like that, in fact, when we tell her it's nap time she gets really excited. So, we get her into her crib and she proceeds to perform some sort of gymnastics routine and has a great time. We've tried sitting in there with her and that worked for a little while hasn't lately. We've tried putting her in her play pen in a different room. We've tried a humidifier (for the noise). We've tried reading to her. We've tried music/movie. Nothing seems to work. Actually, the only naps she's had over the last couple of weeks have come after she's been crying, for whatever reason, and gets sleepy while cuddling. So, after that seemed to work, we tried cuddling prior to putting her to bed but she won't have any part in the cuddling as she just wants down or into her crib. Now, trust me, she is tired in the afternoon and definitely needs a nap so much so that she's fallen asleep eating supper on more than one occasion so I don't think she's out of her nap phase just yet. Any tips?

Discipline...too early? For example, when it's time for bed we give her a little warning and let her know that she'll need to start getting her toys picked up. She used to love putting her toys away. Over the last week or so, she hasn't wanted to participate in the toy clean up at all. We always try to make it fun for her by helping out but she still isn't interested in cleaning up. Is she too young to start "disciplining" in terms of, say, no toys during bath time or no story before bedtime? If I were to do something like that would she even understand or figure out what's going on? Thoughts?

Thanks!!

Well, our 4 year old now knows how to count to 100 by himself. I don't know how he learned because we didn't teach him, but it's pretty awesome.

I just wish he'd actually communicate with us. Such a smart kid but he won't talk yet :(

What does not talking mean?

Well, I shouldn't say he's "not talking yet", he'll talk but only when he wants something, which is good, but we are still unable to have a back and forth conversation with him. He doesn't enunciate his words and speaks very low and has echolalia. This is a typical conversation:

Me: Landon, when I say "Hi Landon" you say "Hi mommy" ok? "Hi Landon".
Landon: "Hi Landon".
Me: No Landon, when I say "Hi Landon", you say "Hi mommy". "Hi Landon".
Landon: "Hi Landon".

I'm still not sure how to get him to say "Hi Mommy" when I say hi to him. Like today, I asked what his name was and he didn't respond. Since he knows how to read, I wrote his name down on a piece of paper and showed it to him when I asked what his name was. Hopefully this'll help.

Shitty day, as we heard from not one, not two, but three of Will's academic subject teachers. Seems "Mr. I Finished All My Homework In Study Hall Today" for the past couple of weeks was not only not doing it and not turning it in but was also for the first time in his 10+ years had been just bluntly lying to our faces about it. The past 7 hours (since he got home from school) have not been fun for anyone here.

Anybody got a map showing the easiest driving route from Georgia to Nebraska?

I have an 8 year old girl and a 7 year old girl. Completely different personalities. Almost opposite.
My 8 year old still has problems in the going to the bathroom arena. She waits until the very last minute and by the very last minute, I mean the very last minute. She is doing the pee dance and we tell her to go. Tjis happens when she is involved in something. I have started tracking her PMS. This is the week. She has been crabby and rude and rolling her eyes at her mom. I dont usual;ly get the treatment but she gives her mom the business regularly.
My 7 year is a cuddle bug. Very popular in the classroom. She is a sweetheart 95% of the time and a joy to have around.

A story about my 7 yr old. One of our friends who have a girl in my 8 year olds class and a boy in my 7 year olds class (3rd grade and 1st grade), got hit by a car while walking in a parking lot. She didnt go to the hospital and a week later was bleeding vaginally and throwing up. She wouldnt go to the hospital until my wife and another friend made her. Her kids stayed with us.
the 3rd grade girls slept together and the 1st grade boy and girl slept together. My kids have full sized beds. This was a thursday. on friday it was my 7 yr olds 7th birthday. On saturday the boy brings my daughter 2 presents. Wait a minute. 2 nights after sleeping over, he brings gifts? I dont like that. ;)

Good luck. My not doing homework started in 5th grade and never stopped until college. I hope you have better success with Will than my parents had with me.

Thanks, we're going to need it I'm afraid.

Bad as the homework deal is, the bald faced lying is more upsetting, as much as anything because it's so completely out of character. It was uggggggg-lee around here for a long time yesterday.

Adding insult to injury (not to mention to our concerns) is the fact that he's proven he can do the work at the new school, albeit as an A/B student instead of a consistent high A student. Given the difference in the curriculum we can live with that but if he doesn't even make an effort on the homework, he's screwed. It's like he's sabotaging his own success here & that's not a trait of mine I'm interested in seeing my child carry on.

this reminds me of when Andrew tried to pull the whole lying bit on us a couple years ago. He was 9 at the time. It was very similar to your story, not so much in the "I've done my homework" thing but more in the "oh sure, everything's going great at school, no no, I'm done disturbing and talking in class" until we got a message from his teacher a Friday afternoon that he had received numerous warnings and that things had to get better. Yeah, the reasons for lying seemed like nothing at all, but I took it hard and it got ugly at home too, loss of privileges and all. I drilled in his head so hard that we would ALWAYS hear about something at one point or another and that he was better for him that he tell us the truth than we'd learn it from another source. So far, two years later, it seems to have worked. Sure, we've had to remind him here and there that "hey, your parents do talk to your teacher every once in a while", but so far so good...

Good luck with him.

FM

Jon, I understand this situation all too well. I never did a lick of homework in high school, I was an a/b student as well without putting forth any effort at all so why should I bother doing boring homework?

I can tell you for myself I simply thought the homework was beneath me, I didn't 'need' the practice. If I got good grades and passed my tests and classes then why should my mother care HOW I did so?

I'm not sure I really believe even now that I needed to do it, but I think if I had focused more on it then I'd have had an easier life right after school.

I wish you luck with the whole lying/homework issues. If he's as smart as it seems he must be then what you as parents need to do is find a way to help him understand the importance of what he's doing. Find some way of showing him how the lies damage his relationships to you and everyone else. If he doesn't come to see the differences himself then nothing you do or say is going to make him see it. my mother used to bellow and blow for hours too and all it did was make me do less and less. Action - reaction, you get upset, he just does more to make you do so. I know that shouldn't make sense but we are talking about kids here =)


Good luck.

Wish I knew about this before Xmas as this will probably not work next year (our oldest will be 9 and will surely know about Santa), but nonetheless, this is great.

Original - On Christmas Eve, let Santa take away the old toys, too | Parent Hacks

In the forever battle to keep declutter our house, Christmas inevitably causes stress, especially when it comes to toys and our 3-year-old. So in our house, we're not the only ones who recycle. Santa recycles, too.

About two weeks ago, when she started getting really excited about Christmas and Santa, we started talking about how we need to make room for new toys. I told her on Christmas Eve, when Santa comes to visit, that next to the cookies and milk she can leave a biiiiig box of toys by the fireplace (I do a lot of Christmas shopping via Amazon.com, so I've saved one of their larger boxes just for this purpose). When Santa stops by our house to leave *her* toys, he'll take the old toys with him back to the elves who will fix them up, recycle them, and send them to little boys and girls who may not get as much from their parents for Christmas as she does - so those kids have lots of toys, too!

Well, she has been *all* gung ho, even putting some of the toys that used to be her favorites and telling us that the little boys and girls who don't have as many toys will love them even more than she does. So on Christmas Eve, when my husband and I are sneaking around to play Santa, the box will go in grandma's trunk for a trip on Dec. 26 to the local women's shelter.

dont really know where to put this or what not but the sickness we got in New Orleans over the Holidays was that we had a miscarriage. She was going on 8 weeks. Anyways, Were taking it in stride and know it all happens for a reason and we'll be trying again shortly. Melancholy around here though but we're in good spirits. It was weird though because everything you read on the internet about the symptoms and such give you very little to go on. Is enough blood to go the the ER? Is it orange, Brown, Red? is it clotty? etc. etc. What the hell do I know. Is it a lot of blood? Well compared to the descriptions on the net....no. But it sure looks like a lot to me! What color is it? Its on white paper....I dont know if it's red or orange or what. Anyways, we went to the Er last night and got the news but it was a good thing to go because we were going mental with the not knowing. We have a regular obgyn appt. tomorrow (it was already set for the pregnant path but we'll finish on the not pregnant path). anyways, ya'll are family around here so here you go.

Sorry to hear Flasch..

:( :( Sorry Flasch.