Naughty Day, New Photos and Coloring

Yesterday, Eli behaved horribly. It was almost shocking. He ran away from me twice at the book store, ran away from me at Jumping Jellybeans, colored on his wall with crayon, threw socks at me (after being explicitly told not to), kept getting out of bed and running around the house while he was supposed to be napping, and generally complained, whined and cried at every one of my requests. All in all, I was fried when Scott got home. As punishment I tried time outs, I told him that we wouldn't be returning to our favorite places, he had no dessert, and I took away one of his very favorite things -- me. Usually at night Scott and I share the good night routine. We take turns reading to him, singing to him and laying with him while he falls asleep (which we are slowly weaning him from.) He's accepted Daddy sharing in the nighttime routine since this summer but, for the cuddling and falling asleep part he always wants me. Sometimes, if Keira needs me, I'm not able to lay with him but, I always try. Last night, I told him that I wasn't going to cuddle with him. I told him that because he was so naughty, I was exhausted and I needed a break. I think taking away the cuddling and the chocolate had the most impact.

Fortunately, he's with Dendi today, and he seems to be behaving a lot better. I think we both needed a break from each other. My guess is that this behavior is a reaction to no longer being the center of attention and his "terrible threes" behavior. He was such a good two year old. I've heard they either misbehave at two or three. For Eli, it's definitely his third year that's been a challenge.

I'm finishing this post now, it's later in the day, and Eli has returned from Dendi's. Fortunately, he is behaving normally, and is pleasant to be around. Thank God!!!

In other Eli news... Eli continues to love taking pictures. Here are a few of my recent favorites: Keira in one of her favorite places -- her Jumperoo and his two Slinkies in a tangle.



His new favorite pasttime is coloring. Until the last month he wanted nothing to do with coloring. He'd rush through it and scribble. But, for some reason a few weeks ago it clicked. Scott sat and colored for him, and I think then he understood how you could do it carefully. Now, he spends many hours each day coloring. Grammie found an activity book for him at the thrift store with dot to dots, mazes and color by numbers. Now, he wants us to make all of his coloring books color by numbers.

Tummy Time

Fortunately, Keira puts up with Tummy Time. Eli never would, which was probably why he learned to crawl AFTER he learned to walk. Mind you, Keira doesn't enjoy Tummy Time, but she tolerates it. The best way for me to get the most Tummy Time out of her is to flip her over onto her tummy on the bed when she wakes up from her nap. She is still averaging about four naps per day. Especially in the morning, she wants to be up for an hour to an hour and a half and then go down for an hour nap. She generally wakes up happy from her naps, and as long as she's not poopy I flip her over. I sing to her to help prolong her happiness. I sing a medley so that she doesn't get bored with one song. With so much Tummy Time, she's getting strong. As you can see from the second picture she looks like she's almost ready to roll over.



We went to the doctor last Wednesday for her four month visit. As you can probably tell from the pictures, she's plumping up quite nicely. At two months she was a little less than twelve pounds, and now at four months she's almost seventeen pounds! Here's all of the official data: she's 25 in. long which is the 72%, she weighs 16 lbs. 10 oz. which is the 93%, and her head circumference is 43 cm which is the 90%. Honestly, with the comments people were making I was worried that she might be overweight. But, the pediatrician emphatically disagreed. Her BMI is 18 and you aren't overweight until you are over 25. In fact, she said that they like to see babies plumping up on breastmilk and to keep it up.

In other Keira news, she is now using her hands constantly. It's so fun to watch. When I put her on her changing table she immediately grabs her feet. And, when I move her around to her various perches I always hand her a toy. Her favorite toys have crinkly paper -- she loves her crinkly book, and her two crinkly bees. Her all time favorite toy is probably her crinkly bee which I leave in the car. This new found interest in touching everything has also made our car rides much easier. She is still wanting to nap about every hour, which makes getting out of the house challenging. But, at play group or Jumping Jelly Beans she'll sometimes take little cat naps on my shoulder.

Finally, I've entered a contest to try to get free groceries for a year using one of Keira's smiley pictures. If you get the chance, I would be ever so thankful if you could follow this link and vote for her picture. If you have the time, you can even vote once a day...
Wide Open Grin Kraft Cheesy Smile Contest

Indigo Girls Concert

On Saturday, Scott and I went on one of only a few dates since Eli was born, and definitely the first one since Keira. As an early birthday present, Scott bought us Indigo Girls concert tickets. Up until the last minute, Scott and I were conflicted and undecided about whether to go. Keira refused to take a bottle, I worried and felt guilty about leaving my four month old, then the forecast said rain... At the last minute, we decided to go. I'm so glad that we did. We had a ball!

The show was great. I loved spending some adult time -- it's always nice to remember what it felt like before parenthood. We even met up with a few friends from California who had coincidentally flown out for the show. Scott and I went to Camp Ravencliff (where we met) with Alia and Tom's her husband. They saw the concert this summer in California, loved the show so much that they decided to fly out for the Atlanta show -- those are real fans! It rained, as you can tell from our ponchos and umbrella, but it certainly didn't put a damper on the show.

Our Interesting Week

We've had an interesting, unusual week. Last Friday morning, Scott went in for an outpatient procedure. He knew he needed three days to recover, so accordingly, he scheduled it for the Friday before Labor Day Weekend. It was a challenging weekend for me. I felt like a single mom for most of it, although it was nice to have Scott's help from the couch when possible. Then, on Sunday, Scott came down with an icky cold. Fortuately, it wasn't the flu, as that's been going around his classroom. Since his illness compounded his recovery to make him feel even worse, I tried to keep the kids out of the house for most of Sunday. Of course, I came down with the cold that night, too. Fortunately, since I was exhausted, fried and sick, Eli spent most of Monday with Dendi and Bapa (thank you!). On Monday, I was able to sleep whenever Keira slept -- I took three naps! By Wednesday, I was feeling like myself again which was fortunate, since I had to get ready for the MOMS Club Consignment Sale. I spent a lot of Wednesday and all of Thursday feverishly pricing about nine baskets full of clothes, along with several large items. Thankfully, Eli was wonderful while I devoted so many hours to pricing. To get everything that I needed to get done on Thursday, I let him have unlimited video time; we usually limit him to an hour each day. Surprisingly, he only watched about an hour and a half. I guess since it was no longer limited, he wasn't as interested. He spent most of his day working on an Activity Book that Grammie got him from her store. He already loves dot to dots and mazes and now his new obsession is color by numbers.

Eli said two sweet things last week. He said both of them after dinner one night. Scott, Eli and I were finishing up dessert and talking about how cute Keira was in her swing. Eli looked at me and said, "Can we keep her?" I told him of course we could, she would be his sister and a part of our family forever.

Then he looked at me and with tears in his eyes said, "Well, at least until she goes to live with God." Wow, talk about tugging at my heart strings! We've talked to him a little about death, I can't remember why, maybe we were telling him about where our other cats went. I certainly didn't bring it up, but the boys asks LOTS of questions. I assured him that Keira wouldn't go to live with God until she was very old, like one hundred.

He thought about this and then said, "Dendi's old, but not that old, right?" Again I assured him that she was over forty years away from one hundred. That boy thinks some deep thoughts, seems like such a heavy burden for a three year old.

A few minutes later when I was clearing the table, he said with a smile on his face, "It's so cute." I asked him what was so cute.

He said, "How you and Daddy take care of me. You're so nice." Ahhhh, we try.

Here are some pictures from the week -- Eli playing with his Bob the Builder play dough set, and my usual cuddling babies.

Poop Party Continues

Wednesdays are now Dendi days. Dendi picks Eli up for the morning and brings him home for lunch and nap. She usually brings Chick-Fil-A with her, which is really sweet. This Wednesday she also brought along a Bob the Builder cake. She found the cake pan several months ago and was waiting for a special occassion to make it. His ongoing pooping accomplishment was such an occassion. I'm still in awe that he's completely out of diapers! Here's the cake and Eli enjoying the cake.




Completely unrelated, here are some pictures of our happy girl, nudie on her changing table, and smiling in bed. Eli took the last picture.

The Rest of the Weekend

Pooping on the potty was so exciting, that in many ways it seems to have eclipsed the weekend. But, we did do other things, so this post will be dedicated to the other parts of our weekend.

First, though, I'd like to share a picture of Dendi with her grandbabies that I took last week. I like the photo on it's own, but it also makes me giggle. If you were to insert me into Dendi's spot you would see how I spend many hours on the week days. Keira is actually wonderful, in that she spends almost four hours sleeping and spends a good deal of other time sitting in her various perches. But, I do spend my share of time holding Keira and entertaining Eli. Here Dendi is trying out Eli's keyboard Caillou book which is a recent favorite. Each page has a familiar song and numbered colored musical notes that correspond to the labeled keyboard. Eli loves it. He will sit patiently and peck out every song. He is so intrigued by it that we bought him another book with new songs and are seriously considering getting the piano back from Dendi and Bapa. Scott has this idea that he could label the piano keys the same way that the keyboard books are labeled.


Here are also some great shots of Keira's smiling face that I took later that day.



Now, back to the weekend... we spent a lot of our weekend playing at home. Two new discoveries that added to Eli's excitement were Hi-Ho Cherry-O and Duplo Dora. Hi-Ho Cherry-O was a great find from the thrift store. It was one dollar and seems to be Eli's favorite board game so far. We played it several times over the weekend. Kodi was fascinated by the little plastic cherries and didn't miss the chance to help out.




A few weeks ago, while cleaning out the garage, Scott found a Dora the Explorer video. Surprisingly, it quickly became one of his favorites. Then, last Friday while we were at Grammie's store we picked up a few Dora figurines. This new interest, prompted Scottie to unearth the Dora Duplo set. We had gotten Dora as a package deal with one of our ebay Duplo purchases for Christmas. At that point, Eli didn't even know who she was, so we put the set away. Here's Scott showing Eli his new Duplo Dora set while Keira looks on.


This new Dora set ignited a new interest in his Duplos in general. We set up his train and some of his Bob characters now play with Dora and Diego. It's so fun to watch him with his Duplos now. He's building things all by himself, without our prompting, and they all have intricate descriptions or stories that go along with them. In the last few days he's built a few versions of the "Bang Bang Bridge" -- a golf cart bridge in the center of town that bangs as people drive their carts over the different sections, and a flag. The creation of the flag prompted an entire imaginary game of it's own about a train. This is such a fun stage. Here's Eli putting Diego on the train, and his excited expression when the train is on it's way.



The big event of the weekend that we tried attending was Kidzfest. It was a little fair put on by Peachtree City with free face painting, jumping inflatables and cheap food.

While we were getting ready to go, Eli asked to take some pictures with my camera. I think we got about forty pictures of random objects in the house and lots of shots of our bushes in the front of the house. Here's a highlight.


He also took many pictures of me and Scott headless. Here's one of Scott with lots of baby gear.


He did manage to get a few good ones, including this one of me and Keira.


The best part of Kidzfest was that it was held at Shakerag Knoll which is just up the cart path from us, so we walked. This is what Eli and Keira looked like when they arrived.



Once Eli finally woke up he tried some of the free jumping inflatables. Scott and I were pleasantly surprised that he wanted to jump in such a loud, large crowd. But, as you can see from the pictures he was having a great time.



Unfortunately, the fun was short lived. The jumping inflatables were not well-supervised and without effective parent intervention, some big kids were climbing up the slides. Little kids were actually getting trapped at the top, between more kids coming up the stairs, and the big kids climbing up the slide. Scott had to climb up the slide and rescue Eli and we left the Kidzfest with him in tears. The good thing about the debacle was that it made us appreciate Jumping Jelly Beans all the more and we've started frequenting it again.

These last two pictures show the best part of any weekend -- Daddy hanging out with his babies. These pictures also show how fascinated Keira is with her hands. She's really playing with and studying everything you hand her. Invariably, everything spends a little time in her mouth. If you put your hand near her, she'll grab a finger and stuff it in her mouth. Usually it's with such gusto that she'll gag herself.

Poop on the Potty!!!

Hallelujah! We made it. Eli is 100% potty-trained. On Sunday, he went poop on the potty, and he hasn't looked back since. *Warning -- I will be going into detail, so for those of you who would rather not read about potty details, feel free to skip this post or skim as necessary. Now back to our milestone... as I've said in a previous post, Eli has been potty trained as far as pee is concerned for quite some time now. He's had dry naps and dry bedtimes for weeks now, and he would only have tiny accidents, he'd stop himself and finish on the potty. But, he had no interest in pooping on the potty. He would tell us he had to poop and ask for a diaper. We would always try to talk him into using the potty instead, by bribing him with anything imaginable, talking it up as an accomplishment, or talking about how much better it was. But, nothing seemed to sway him. A few people suggested denying him the diaper for pooping. We didn't think that was a great idea. He's been doing the "poopy dance" for a while now. At some point, he decided pooping hurt, so he'd hold it, then when he finally couldn't any longer, it was harder than a rock, therefore reinforcing the cycle.

Early last week we made progress, without really meaning to. He would get a diaper to poop in, pee in it first, and ask for another one. With his tummy bug and the peeing preceeding pooping we were burning through diapers, and we had no intention of buying another box. So, Scott said he had to pee on the potty first, every time he requested a diaper. We also said that if we had to buy another box of diapers we wouldn't have any money to buy dessert. The dual approach seems to have worked. I think having to sit on the potty even for a moment while he had to poop helped, and the boy loves his dessert, and had no intention of giving it up! We started talking about how he could try to poop on the potty, then get a diaper. Then, we bought some M&M's to reward his effort. We said he could earn an M&M for each minute he sat on the potty or for every toot. He was interested. Which leads us to Sunday. He needed to poop, sat on the potty to pee and we had convinced him to try to earn some M&Ms while he was at it. Scott was in the bathroom with him, I was changing Keira's diaper. Eventually, Eli asked for a diaper, Scott nonchalantly stalled and before he knew he had pooped! Of course, we made a huge deal out of it. We called both Grammie and Dendi who were holding on to some rewards for him. Grammie came over that night to give him a few little things she'd been saving for him at her store. Scottie took him out to get chocolate cupcakes that night. And, yesterday, Dendi came over to take him to get a special cupcake that she'd promised him.

He hasn't looked back since. I think he's pooped in the potty about seven times since then -- the end of this tummy bug has provided a lot of practice. :) Finally, we are down to one in diapers. I'm so happy.