A Proud Potty Moment

For the last few weeks, I have been putting Sweet Pea on the potty before bath time just to get her used to the idea and because I bathe all 3 kids at the same time and the boys are already in the habit of using the bathroom before bath time.  Tonight she walked into the bathroom, lifted the lid to the toilet and said "pee pee".  Papa Bear was trying to tell me he wasn't ready to put her in the tub but I just had to respond to what she was doing and saying.  Trying to capitalize on the moment and all of that.  Anyway, I take her diaper off and she lifts the toilet seat and tries to belly up to the toilet and pee standing up like her big brothers.  Oh my goodness, I about fell over laughing.  I picked her up, plopped her on the potty and she peed, told me she was all done and got down.  It was a proud, proud moment and also one for the books.  It seems that Sweet Pea wants to do everything that her big brothers do, EXACTLY the same way as her brothers do it.  We will have to work on that. 

*titling this post was so difficult because I just didn't know how inappropriate it would be to title it Sweet Pea Pee. 

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad...

Bubbles?  Sweet Pea!  Yup, that's right I said Bubbles.   Last night, Papa Bear was giving her a bath and decided to make it fun by adding some bubbles.  We don't usually use bubbles because of Little Man's sensitive skin reactions.  Sweet Pea stood up as soon as she saw them form and as they creeped back towards her she started backing up.  When she had backed up as far as she could go and the bubbles reached her toes she started screaming like it was toxic bubbles in a horror film.  Papa Bear tried to show her they were fun and safe, but she wasn't having it.  He had to drain the tub and as soon as the bubbles receded she sat down and played happily.  The girl that will take flying leaps off of tables and pick up worms and squish them is terrified of bubble baths.  It is a good thing we aren't really a bubble bath kind of family.

Observations

-  Kids do NOT appreciate "new car" smell like adults do.  Peanut keeps asking "what that smell" and Little Man keeps saying "it's new car smell, I hope this car gets old really fast." (no, we didn't actually get a new car, this is a rental while the mini-van is getting fixed.

-  Peanut is a motor-mouth.  Who knew?!  Now that his words are starting to flow faster, I am having to tell him to wait his turn to talk and he responds by saying, "No mommy, you proud of my words, you LOOOOVE my words.  I talk now".  So Peanut is a motor-mouth and a smarty-pants.

-  My kids are very literal.  Peanut hadn't taken a nap and was losing it over very little things and I said "oh buddy, you are a mess." He looked down at his shirt, brushed off imagnary dirt and said "Peanut not mess, Peanut not dirty, Peanut clean."  I asked Little Man to wait for a hot second and he asked me what made the second hot and if he could have a cold minute.  Yup, literal and still a smarty-pants.

-  Sweet Pea is a Mama's girl and I love it.  She wraps those little arms around my neck and I am done in.  Which is a good thing because she thinks she is 5 months and should be held all the time.  She is so content to sit in my arms and hang out and watch the world.  The boys were always on the go, but this girl of mine, well she is a watcher, an observers and she likes to do it from my arms. I am not complaining.  Not a bit!

-  I would not make a good monster truck rally driver.  I am driving a huge SUV at the moment and spend all of my time willing the little cars to get out of my way before I crush them.  My kids would love to be monster truck drivers. The peanut gallery is full of suggestions of exactly how we can get around the traffic now that we are in a BIG CAR!

Happy Valentines Day!

I have never put a lot of stock in Valentines Day but it is still nice to receive something loving and heartfelt on this day or really any other day for that matter.  So this morning when Little Man brought me his cut-out heart that he had drawn on and written these words: "I LUVE YOU MOMMA LOAD JACKSON".  I melted.  Big glob of Mama Bear, melted everywhere.  He spelled out the words himself.  It is one of those items that I will keep forever and ever and will pull out when he is 17 and too cool to kiss me to remind myself how much he "luves" me.  He drew a picture of me, Papa, Sweet Pea and himself.  He said that he forgot to put Peanut on there and I asked him if he wanted to add it and he said that it was already completed so he couldn't add Peanut.  Peanut drew on a heart for me and then took scissors to it and it is a mangled mess, but it is a heartfelt mangled mess and that is just about all I can ask for.  I got a cupcake and coffee delivered to my bed this morning.  Papa Bear is on deadline so he won't be home to celebrate with us tonight.  That's ok, in this house we can make any day Valentines Day. (Plus MeeMom is visiting this weekend which means we get a date night)  Happy Valentines Everyone, "LOAD" MamaBear

A post in which I rant....

Parenting is terrifying, utterly terrifying.  When I was pregnant with Little Man, I spent 9 months thinking that I couldn't wait for him to be born so I could stop worrying.  Then the second he was in my arms I was wishing I could put him back in because as scary as pregnancy was, he was so much safer tucked away and cushioned from the world.  There are so many things that we just can't control for our children and for a self-professed control freak like myself, that presents many problems.  It doesn't matter how much we keep them in safety helmets, the top-notch car seats or sequestered from any other child that has the sniffles they will still get sick, fall off their bikes and chances are will at some point end up in the ER taking years off of your life.  Since we can't control these things, we end up controlling things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of life like preschool and tv limits and junk food consumption.  And then we second guess all of those areas and the blame rains down.  If I had chosen a different preschool maybe, if I hadn't let him eat all of that high fructose corn syrup....  The what-if's are terrifying and full of guilt.  I have spent a lot of time wondering if Peanut hadn't been premature, the surviving twin in a vanishing twin pregnancy, if I had been able to keep pre-natal vitamins down or eaten more or less of something rich in vitamins would he still have Apraxia.  Parenting is terrifying.

But once in a while you find a battle that you can fight, an area that you can control that really matters and when you get there as terrified as you might be, you fight. You fight with everything that you have and arm yourself with every weapon available to you.  That is what this IEP process has been for me.  Today I won a small battle but I know that there is a lot more to come.  Peanut turns 3 next month and when he does, we lose our amazing and wonderful speech therapist that has taught us so much.  For 2 months I have been fighting to get the right goals set for him and the right level of service.  Today the goals are set, they are good goals.  They are motoric and written by the head of speech therapy.  But the level of service is still a battle that I am not finished with.  He is being offered 4 hours a month of speech therapy at a school near us and it may or may not be 1:1.  He needs 1:1, he needs more than 4 hours a month, he needs at least three 30 minute sessions a week and he needs extended year services.  I will get it for him and I won't stop until I do.  Because parenting is utterly terrifying, but I got this.  This is can do. And I will.

No means No and No means Yes - Tender Moments

Ask Sweet Pea just about any question and she will shake her head no, give you an adorable smile and then scream when you actually think she meant no and she really meant yes....I want more food, I want that toy, I want to take my socks off and put them on my hands.  It is a bit confusing but it works for her.  The funniest part is that Little Man seems to actually know when she means yes and when she means no.  He asks her if she wants her blue shoes and she shakes her head no, hugs him and then he just ignores the shake of her head and tells her to sit down so that he can put her shoes on for her.  My theory on this is because he just never listens when anyone tells him no and just does whatever he wants to do and that just happens to line up with what she wants too.  This evening, after dinner, she was chasing him around the playroom and whenver she would catch him she threw her little arms around his waist and gave him the biggest hug.  Those two, have a really special relationship....as long as she isn't knocking down his magnablock creations.

We caught another sweet moment tonight between Little Man and Peanut.  Papa Bear had just gotten home from work and I had gone into the office to try and get some work done before it got too late when I hear Papa Bear say "shhhh, loook". I leaned over and both boys were sitting on the couch.  Ok, just that statement alone is amazing.  The never sit still and certainly not at the same time and right next to each other.  Little Man was reading Peanut a book and Peanut was asking questions and while the moment didn't last long, it was special and one I will remember the next time they are hitting each other over the head with superheroes.