Monday, April 27, 2015

Oh boy!

Last week was the week that I dread as soon as we find out that there's offspring in utero. It's what nightmares are made of. It's what brings out the true crazy inside of me. Potty training week. Even saying the words, my core tightens with dread and my eyes fill with tears. When I say that I dread it while young one's are in utero, I'm not exaggerating. Truthfully, I've been dreading potty training my own children since sixth grade. My friend Gretchen, not from Sweden, not that I have a friend Gretchen from Sweden, but Gretchen sounds like such a Swedish name and in my mind all Gretchen's should have an amazing Swedish accent. My friend didn't, she was a red head from Orem, Utah. I digress, Gretchen and I were walking around at recess one day and we were talking about having kids. Gretchen said that she didn't know if she wanted to have kids. I said,"Yeah, just think about trying to potty train a little kid." She looked at me kind of weird and said that she was talking about the pain of actually having a child. But even at the ripe old age of 12 I knew that there was NO way I would have a child without an epidural. The pain wasn't the issue, it was potty training. Well folks, the time had come in little B's life. It was ingrained in my brain by my mom that you start potty training your kids the Monday after they turn two. That way they're ready to go to nursery on Sunday without accidents. I was filled with guilt that little B is actually 25 months old was wasn't potty trained yet. On Sunday night I prayed one more time to know if the young one was ready to ditch the diaper. This was one of the few times in my life that I was wanting a no answer. I was told yes he's ready. Monday morning seemed to come too fast. To say that Monday was a truly terrible day would be a gross understatement. We have six pairs of training pants and I did laundry three times to wash them. I had no clue that he peed so much every day. Most of the day was spent in tears and they didn't come from the little one. By 6:00 that night I was second guessing that I was told that little B was ready, because it seemed quite the opposite. We had just finished practicing and I was cleaning up. I was just washing my hands, he was standing next to me and he peed on the floor. I about punched a hole in the wall. We both burst into tears as we practiced again. I looked at the ceiling and said,"Just once! Help him pee in the potty just once today!" We cleaned it up and started the bedtime routine that seems to take forever especially when it's been a truly awful day. I brushed his teeth and told him that he needed to try going potty again. I put him up there and miracles of miracles, he peed in the potty! I started jumping up and down and clapping and hugging him and kissing his little cheeks. He started clapping and yelling "Yay! I did it!" Tuesday was better than Monday. He even pooped in the potty on Tuesday! Wednesday was awesome! I think he only had one accident on Wednesday. Since Wednesday, he's only had one accident! He stays dry during his naps and at night. I was worried about nursery on Sunday and how that would go. I took him potty two or three times during nursery just to make sure he didn't have an accident on the church floor; because that would be awful! One of the times I took him I didn't think that he would go since he had just gone at the end of sacrament meeting. Since I didn't think he would go, I didn't take the time to push his manhood down. Of course he went and it got all over the back of his pants. Thankfully we had brought extra pants. Too bad they were sweats and looked awful at church. But, I didn't really care because we hadn't needed to change them because he had an accident. I take none of the credit. It was ALL Heavenly Father. There is no way we could have started the week out the way that we did and then two days later be accident free.




When we potty train our kids, we don't put pants on them. Thankfully he doesn't like pants so that wasn't a problem for him. There was one of the days that he wouldn't keep his shirt on either, but he was freezing so I put socks on him to try and at least keep his feet a little warmer. I wish I had taken a picture of him in just undies and socks.


This is what I found this morning. He really doesn't like to wear pants. He must have taken his pants off and his undies came off too. When I asked him why he didn't have any undies or pants on he smiled a mischievous smile and said, "I don't know" I am so thankful that he caught on to potty training so fast and that Heavenly Father helped him so much. It makes me so happy to know that we won't have to potty train another little one. Yipee for no more diapers!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Mowing the lawn

Remember this picture from last year? I was mowing the lawn and little B was freaking out because it was too loud and so I had to hold him whilst I mowed? Well, not a lot has changed.
First of all, M wants me to make sure that everyone knows that we didn't mow the lawn the same day we took his birthday pictures, he's just wearing the same shirt. Now that that's out of the way.... I told him that I was going to mow the lawn. I told him that it was going to be loud. He said "K." and went and stood on the little slab of cement we have by our back door. I turned the lawn mower on and Little B burst into tears. He came over to me and held his hands up for me to pick him up. I did and he told me that he wanted to get down. I put him down and told him he could go in with M and K. They were home for spring break and they wanted to go in while I mowed. Anyway, he shook his head, grabbed onto the lawn mower and started walking with me. He cried the whole time he was pushing it. I kept leaning down telling him that he could go play with the kids in the house. He told me no and kept pushing. I turned it off in case it was the sound that was making him too nervous to go in with M and K. As soon as it was off, through his tears he pointed at it and said,"what's that?" I told him that it was the lawn mower. I asked him if he wanted to go in. Still crying he said,"No! And help you."  So, through my sweat and his tears, we mowed the lawn! Thankfully he had had enough of mowing the lawn by the time the bunny incident happened. K had come outside and was jumping on the trampoline. I was mowing along and a bunny went jumping through the exceedingly long grass. It hopped through the grass and settled in right next to the fence. I was watching it to make sure that I didn't run over it. I got right behind it and it just sat there. I walked in front of the mower and stomped my foot right next to it. It jumped away after just a few stompings of my foot. K yelled from the trampoline,"I see it! It hopped under the fence by Rod's house." Rod is our neighbor. I finished mowing the back and went to the front. Have I mentioned that I hate the grass here? It's thick and so long and takes a really long time to mow. Anyhow, I was mowing the front and got next to the fence by Rod's house. Now, when I say the grass is long, I mean really long. From the side of the mower, the wheels are almost covered by the grass and I mow the lawn once a week. It just grows really fast. So, I'm mowing along thinking about how I'm almost done and getting very excited when all the sudden I hear this awful sound. I know that I've just run over something. I hear the sound and think, oh please be a BIG stick and not the little bunny. As we all know thinking is really fast, so I hear the sound, think the thought and see the puff of fur that blows out from around all sides of the lawn mower almost as the same time. I was truly horrified when I pulled the lawn mower back and saw a red puddle in the grass. It was so sad! I prayed and prayed saying that I was so sorry about hitting the little bunny. Why didn't it move? Why would you just sit there when a very large, loud thing was roaring towards you? Why wouldn't you hop away? When I emptied the bag I tried not to look, but it was like a bad kissing scene on TV, I just couldn't look away. To say I was upset as the little ball of fur came tumbling out of the bag would be a huge understatement. When we mow the lawn here, we put the clippings on the side of the road and every Thursday, the city comes and sucks up your lawn things with a vacuum truck thing. I was thinking that I had gotten the clippings there before the truck came. I was wrong. For a week the grass clippings that were now the burial site of a little bunny sat by our sidewalk as a reminder of what had happened. B is a big bully and if something bad happens, like a shooting in a major city, he'll say something like, "That's probably like running over a little bunny with the lawn mower." Then he laughs as I punch him. It's safe to say that now when I mow the lawn, I'm really jumpy and if I see a clump of grass that the lawn mower doesn't suck up, I have to kick it apart so that my brain doesn't turn it into the remains of a poor innocent bunny. Maybe I should just leave all lawn mowing responsibilities to Little B. He might cry the whole time, but at least he would leave the bunnies in the grass alone.

Birthday pictures



Here it is! Here's the best we could get. Ok, not really, this was just on a random day, but I love that he takes his pants off and wears K's slippers. I love that Brandon used to never wear a shirt. I think it's so cute when little boys run around without a shirt on. I have always secretly hoped that our little boys would take their shirts off like Brandon did. Little B keeps his shirt on, but his pants are usually off. No, it's not as cute, but I'll take it! Here are the birthday pictures for real.





I know that we're biased because he's our kid, but, seriously, these are so cute right?! He still looks exactly like B. We even pulled out B's baby book and his baby pictures and Little B's pictures look almost identical. I knew that I wouldn't be able to get him to smile and take the picture at the same time, so we had to wait to take them until B had a post call day and had the day off.  B takes better pictures so I had the job of getting Little B to smile. Truth be told, he's a tough crowd. To get him to look at the camera with his eyes open and smiling is probably comparable to parting the Red Sea. Truth, it's not as easy as it looks. We prayed fervently that he would smile. Clearly our prayers were heard and answered! Yay for good 2 year old pictures!

Voting