You Go Girl (To the Potty That Is)!

Today Katherine Elizabeth: went pee-pee on the potty for the 1st time EVER! 1 year, 10 months old! You go (to the potty) girl!

While at grandma's she saw Ashton go, said "I go pee-pee too", ran to the potty, had me help with her diaper and take off her dress, sat down "neked" in nothing but her brand new New Balance shoes and socks and just did it. I wanted to scream WOOHOO, but thought she'd be startled into stopping mid-pee and then we'd have a mess. That pause was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time.

I see the proverbial light at the end of the long and expensive diaper tunnel I've been in since 2004. Come on potty-trained children!!!!

Wow...whata week.

Last week was tough, plain and simple. All I can say is I am GLAD we all survived.

• Kate - Had a high fever caused by a viral infection followed by when she drank a 4oz bottle of Motrin when I left the room to chase Ashton down. Then, a few short days later she was let out of the house by Ashton while I was sleeping early one morning and I awoke to a front door open and raced down to where she was - 2 houses away.


• Ashton - Survived the spanking I gave him for letting Kate out of the house then tried to drown himself in our community pool while I was putting suntan lotion on Kate. Ashton also thought vitamins taste like candy and tried to eat a whole bottle (or maybe he was trying to out-do Kate).



• Fish - Remember the post about the M&M's? Well, the fish all experienced a morbid "death-by-chocolate" and had to be "buried at sea" i.e. the toilet. I then waited a few days, decided to buy a few more since the aquatic frog survived the murky waters and was all alone. When I came home from the pet store and was emptying the water out of the fish bag, so as to not mix my water and theirs, one pour soul slipped down the drain and is now resting in reservoir heaven. (Net loss of 7 fish now)

Well, after cleaning out the fish tank, hiding and locking up ALL medicines and vitamins, and buying double-keyed deadbolts for our front door and locks for our back deck, I feel this week HAS to be a better week! Wish us luck!

2 Reids in Action

Kate and Jimmy dance
__________________________________________________________________________________


Ashton golfs

Mamaspeakin'

This is how I began my Friday:

"Kate honey, it's great you are sharing, but no...fish don't
eat M&M's."

You see, Ashton had some how climbed on top of our kitchen counter, reached up as high as physically possible to gain access to 3lbs. of M&M's I was keeping there for making cookies with. (This all while I was sleeping peacefully in my bed.)
Spiderman than carried the bag upstairs very quietly - he NEVER does anything quietly but somehow manged to do it when it counted- to his room. There he and Kate commenced on not only eating the contents of the bag but squirreled tons away all over his room so there would be more for later.
When I entered the room Kate was standing in front of the fish tank saying "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!" while dropping the candy-coated chocolate into the tank for her friends, Tetra and company to enjoy. She's so caring and considerate!
But hey, since it wasn't a poopy mess I was dealing with, all I could do was try not to laugh and race them around the room seeing who could eat the rest of the M&M's up quicker, two toddlers or a Dyson. Thank goodness the Dyson won!
Since the AC is broken today and I don't know what to do with two sugar filled children when it's 90* INSIDE the house, we are heading up to mom's for them to run it out of their system.

T G I F

This is Awesome!!!

3 Men and a Little Lady Install a Kitchen Faucet wSoap Dispenser (No Words, Just Photos)

:)

Words of Wisdom

Don't focus on what you don't have, focus on what you do.

Amended 8.18.08 after watching Micheal Phelps, previously disgnosed with ADHD and as a "hyper kid" set Olympic history with 8 gold medals -

More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do

Not Child's Play...

• Recently we attended a play date with the parent's group a friend of mine
  started. I was really upset by the experience and hope that sharing gets me over and through it.
• I had advised the organizer of the group time and
  time again that Ashton can be a little wild and difficult to manage at times.
  She insisted that the group was full of alternative-style parents and that he
  would be accepted "as is" in all of his eccentricities. So, on a day when Paul
  was off from work, we decided to meet the group for the 1st time.
• The play date was at the home of my friend, A, the organizer. On the way to the
  group Ashton asked where we were going and who would be there. After explaining
  we were going to see A and her daughter, R, Ashton very happily exclaimed he
  would love to share some of his American flags with R and proudly held up which
  one he planned to give. Now, as a fanatic collector of items, I was impressed
  with his plan to give something he currently treasured away, especially to
  someone he had met only once.
• Once we arrived at the house, I was a little nervous but encouraged by Ashton's preplanned generosity and happy to be meeting so many new people. The age of the children that attended the playgroup that day ranged from 6 months - ~2 years old, excluding Ashton who's 3.5. I was a little surprised to see that while the kitchen was gated off, the rest of the house was not but did not get the impression that anywhere was off limits for the children, particularly the nursery. Ashton, brimming with the curiosity of a
  3 year old, raced around to check out everything he could, but staying out of
  the master bedroom and bath. (Ashton and Kate were the only children who left
  the living room area...why I don't know.) The toy he came back in to the living
  room with, having found it god knows where, was a cowbell.
• I am going to talk about the cow bell, not as the only instance where I felt the parents of
  the group were annoyed with Ashton, but as the one I remember most. Now, the cow
  bell WAS loud from the joy he got when he rang it, but I have to put my foot
  down and say, why have a toy for a child that no one wants them to play with. I
  say this only because, as he rang the bell, I heard several off hand remarks
  like "WOW, that's quite a bell" and "Maybe we should put some tissue around the
  inside so it doesn't make any noise." Now, what the heck kind of sense does that
  make to have a bell that doesn't make noise? I suppose I'm harking on this point
  because I don't understand what happened. I mean, a)he was invited to a group to
  play but not seemingly to play in the way he likes to play, which is typical for
  a 3 year old boy and b) had I taken the bell away from him, he would have been
  so upset a loud cow bell would have sounded like soft wind chimes in comparison
  with his protesting tantrum. I mean, what is the point of a "play group" if not
  to PLAY? What would have been the appropriate way for him to "play"? Sitting
  quietly on my lap? Bowing and curtsying? I saw one dad spending most of the time
  quietly reading a book to his daughter and holding her on his lap, but really,
  why come to a group to do that?
• Another thing, one mother quickly packed her little girl up the moment she began to throw a tantrum and whisked her out the door. I wonder if I should do the same and feel shamed into quickly leaving if my children were to act up? Or should I feel that in public, let
  alone around other parents, I should feel free to work through the tantrum,
  discipline, then get back to the group? Why try to hide something that everyone
  else surely goes through?
• But hey, maybe this just wasn't the group I thought it was or we are not group people. I observed another mother, not finding joy in her 16-month old's identification of a penguin toy as a "duck", but scolding her 16 MONTH OLD for not using the word penguin instead. I mean, WOW, the genus of a species...from a 16-month old. Wow, that's not expecting a
  lot or anything...:(
• Maybe in all the rush to organize and categorize and perfect our children, this generation is causing them to miss out on so much. Like the email the co-organizer of the group sent out for the next playgroup. Maybe my bad experience was due to age difference, as the email
  specified this one would be for kids "2 and under due to the age appropriateness
  of the toys". (This was by the father who was quietly reading to his child
  during the playgroup, so maybe he's unfamiliar with the term "parallel playing".
  Or maybe he's just unfamiliar with toys and kids, the fact that if they belong
  to someone else they are always "age appropriate".) But really, what is the harm
  in older kids mixing with younger kids? Isn't that how younger kids learn? From
  older kids? Or does he fear my child's sensory integration dysfunction will rub
  off on his? What better to teach our children than tolerance for differences? I
  would never intentionally exclude a child for any reason and cannot understand
  anyone that would.
• I fear the age limit was set due to fear of Ashton's high-energy. This now seems to exclude Ashton from most activities, as I cannot find a parent with a child his age that is not working during the times we have free. I fear that he is now excluded from the core of the group who's one member stated "A great support structure for parents with kids to reassure them they are not alone." Ironically I now feel very alone and more isolated than ever, particularly since I still have not had any communication to see how we liked
  our first visit to the group from the organizer, my friend, A, who hosted the
  event in her home. A's husband joined the play date late, but seemed overly polite, preoccupied
  with apologizing for his baby's moodiness (aren't all babies moody?) and expressed surprised the toys were
  taken out (by my kids of course). So hey, maybe we left an equally bad impression?
  I really don't know. Maybe I am being overly-sensitive, but when it comes to
  one's children, who isn't?
• I will say this, by excluding Ashton, even from one play date, they are excluding a child who is full of joy and energy with communication skills that are phenomenal enough to help his best friend, Richard, learn English better than his parent's native Spanish. They are also
  excluding Kate, who cannot attend playgroups without Ashton, but who cares more
  for babies than any adult or toy. I may be over reacting, but I had such high hopes that were quickly deflated.
• I've since canceled my membership to the group and will stick to more informal play times where anything goes and imaginations as well as cow bells can ring free.

A Proud Auntie

It was reported to me today that Angelique is potty-trained! The first of the grandchildren to do so! I am VERY proud of her accomplishment and can't wait to share the news with Ashton & Kate when they awake. Kate is beginning to become VERY interested in this magical seat called "the potty" and Ashton, well, he can some days but most he can't.

Dominique told me the motivation was Princess Panties from Wal-Mart...no potty, no panties. Angelique, being the genius child she is, quickly caught on and hasn't turned back since.

Great job Angelique!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mamaspeakin'

The day I realized I was going to be a mother, I never dreamed things like the following would flow daily from my mouth like raindrops in a thunderstorm.

"Young Lady, we do NOT use peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to wipe
our bellies with."

Even more distant in my realization of what motherhood is really about...this was not the strangest part of my day today.

I Touched a Zebra Today...

Today, in honor of America's birthday, we left the country! Well...not REALLY! But it did feel as if we stepped off a puddle jumper onto a safari through the Serengeti. We then had to "return" as the monsoon season began.

You see, up in Mooresville, NC there is a privately owned ranch that is home to an amazing variety of exotic animals. As you slowly drive your own car through 3.5 miles of trail, you pass Ostriches as tall as your car, deer that come right up to your window looking for kibbles and come eye to eye with Emus that stare you into submission! The whole experience was amazing, just under an hour from our home.

Kate thoroughly enjoyed the giant "ducks" as she called them, sending out a wild laugh each time they would come to the window. Ashton was fascinated by the dark black and white pigs that seemed to roam everywhere, asking again and again if they were coming to his room (see earlier post ~Pigs & Poultry). Paul enjoyed the camels and rhinoceros the most and I, well, I was simply amazed by the sheer size of the Zebras. For some reason I thought they were more pony-sized than Clydesdale-sized!

I was suprised that Paul allowed me to unbuckle the children from their car seats, but almost fell on the floor when he agreed to let them take turns sitting on his lap and "driving". At one point Ashton even had full control of the steering wheel when Paul lifted his hands up to give him a chance. I really enjoyed witnessing these father/son and father/daughter moments.

As it was hot and VERY sticky outside, we ended up not staying as long as we would have liked at the petting area/pirate ship playground/porch swings. The rumble of distant thunder quickly approaching drove us into our car and back towards Charlotte. Just as we got on 85S, the heavens opened up and down came the rain. Normally I'm not scared of some water on my windshield, but the more cars we passed that had pulled over due to the downpour, the more nervous I became. We soon passed a car in a ditch facing the wrong way then witnessed another car fly off the road going about 80 MPH and into the middle median. The children also didn't like the loud roaring of the rain on our van and soon became scared.

To comfort Kate after seeing a very frightened look not leaving her face, I reached back to hold hold her hand, even though I was expecting her to jerk it away as she always does. But this time, she held my hand the whole way home, even asking to hold Daddy's hand as well. I will admit that, however selfish it may seem, I am glad she was scared and really enjoyed comforting her and the feeling of her still tiny hand curled around my first two fingers.

I really had a wonderful time and can't wait to take the kids and hope to take Angelique again soon.

Check out all the photos from my cell phone (camera battery had died) here - http://www.the704reids.shutterfly.com/