Potty Training Nathan - Day 4

What a huge success today was, again.  Once again I didn't get his morning pee, but he didn't have a single pee accident all day today!  Every time I put him on the potty (which is every two hours because that seems to work well for him), he went!  He did poo in his underwear once, but that's okay.  I even went to a family storytime in the morning with him (with a pull-up over top of his underwear, just in case) and in the late morning I went to Canadian Tire and then did a 'big' shop at Superstore and he stayed dry the entire time.  Unless things take a sudden turn for the worst, I won't be giving daily updates anymore.

Potty Training Nathan - Day 3

Today was a HUGE SUCCESS!  What a great day!  It started out by me waiting for Nathan to wake up, so that I could rush him to the potty in hopes of catching his first pee.  After sitting for a few minutes, he excitedly told me that one drop came out!  He sat for a minute longer but nothing else happened, so I put him in his underwear and sent him on his way.  Five minutes later he peed.  Oh well, at least we had the drop!  That was enough motivation to keep me going.

Nathan skipped going to Muffin Morning with my Mom this morning so that we could continue training, and he successfully peed on the potty at 11am.  And then at 1pm.   And again at 3pm.  And then he pood in swim trunks outside (ewww).  But was successful again at 5pm, and 6:30pm (right before his shower), AND at 7:30pm (right before bed).  That's six successful pees!  He doesn't even have to sit for very long anymore before he pees, so he totally understands how to release it.  AWESOME!  He is so proud of himself.  "I'm big now, Mom!"  I'm so proud of him, too!  Here's hoping that tomorrow is successful as well!

Olivia has Two Teeth...and Potting Training Nathan - Day 2

Olivia has been super-cranky this past week, and fought a fever for a few days as well.  FINALLY, she popped her first lower tooth yesterday and the second today and voila!  Happier Olivia (and family)!

As for training Nathan:  I woke up before Nathan this morning so that I could put him on the potty as soon as he woke up, but I missed it because his diaper was wet and then he didn't pee again until 11:30am (which was in the garage lol).  The afternoon had a few more accidents, until 4:30pm, when he peed on the potty!  "It's coming out, Mom!" he said excitedly.  He didn't have any more accidents after that, but that's because he didn't pee again...I'm assuming he peed while having a quick little bath after dinner.  Oh well, at least we got in one success!  Maybe tomorrow will have two successes?  I'm hoping!

Potty Training Nathan - Day 1

This is my first official full-force attempt at potty training Nathan.  He turned 2.5 today and I had planned to stick around the house anyways, so I thought I would give it a go.  To sum up our day:  I think we had 10 accidents...and then we ended with a successful pee in the potty.  Thank goodness.  Here's hoping tomorrow is a little more successful!!

Olivia is 8 Months Old!

At eight months old, Olivia weighs 19 lb 8 oz and is 28.75" tall.  She comfortably is wearing her 9-12 month clothes.

{Helping Daddy put the baby gate up!}

This has been a huge month for Olivia.  Not only did she learn how to pull herself up on furniture and crawl, but she has also learned how to drop herself down from furniture, climb up stairs, and cruise around furniture (moving to her right, only).  She is always on the move!  She's pretty quick and crawling, and can climb up half a flight of stairs even before you realize that she's on them.  She LOVES to walk around with anyone who is willing to walk with her, holding her hands.  Each week her confidence and balance gets better!  Give it a week or two and she'll be walking with the assistance of only one hand.  My prediction is that she will be independently walking before 11 months.  Eek.  The sooner she walks though, the less damage to her legs.  If we're outside where there is pavement, I try to make sure that she is wearing long pants otherwise her knees and shins get all scraped up.

Because of her increased mobility, we've unofficially changed her name to "Trouble".  Walk into our house at any given moment and you will hear someone saying, "Watch out, here comes Trouble!"

Olivia loves her siblings.  Nathan and Kayla spend the most time with her - Nathan will bring her toys and Kayla will carry her around.  They all love to call Olivia to them and encourage her to come by holding a toy out in front of her.

Olivia loves any sort of 'rattle' toy.  Every time she picks up a toy she shakes it to see if it rattles.  She also loves balloons.

When she wants a bottle, she puts one finger in her mouth and bites on it.

Olivia's hair is now long enough to fit into one or two ponies, and it's SO cute!  She's starting to look less like a boy now that her hair can be styled.

Olivia loves the bath.  When she crawls upstairs, the first thing she does is crawl to the bathroom and stand by the bathtub.  I still bathe her every morning in the baby bath in kitchen sink out of convenience, but if we have time to kill after dinner then I will give her a bath upstairs in the regular tub.

She has really started to babble, saying "Dadadadadadadada."

Olivia's schedule:
I've been working on dropping Olivia down to two naps, which I'm successful at doing 90% of the time.  I've also been working on cutting out the number of bottles that Olivia gets, by pushing her to finish 6oz each feed.  In the morning she struggles to finish all six, so just before she goes down for her first nap I always offer her whatever she didn't finish).  On a typical day, this is her schedule:
7:00am  Wake Up
7:45am  Breakfast (1/4 slice of bread with peanut butter and jam, and some banana)
8:45am  Bottle (4oz)
9:45am  Bottle (2oz)
10:00am  Nap
11:00am  Wake Up
12:00pm   Lunch (1/4 slice of bread with cheese, 1/4 jar of baby food fruit)
1:00pm  Bottle (6oz)
1:30pm  Nap
2:45pm  Wake Up
3:00pm  Snack (Graduates or Cheerios or Yogurt)
5:00pm  Dinner (whatever we are having)
6:00pm  Bottle (4oz)
7:45pm  Bottle (6oz)
8:00pm  Bed
3:00am  Bottle (3oz)

Matthew and Kayla are FIVE!

How crazy is it that Matthew and Kayla are FIVE?!?!?  It feels so much older than four.  Five means they are starting kindergarten...oh no!  I can't believe it's been five years since I become a mother.  As I look back I can't help but think about how little I knew about parenting.  But, with a lot of advice and a lot of trial and error, we're starting to figure some things out!  

It's amazing to me how two kids can be so different, yet so very similar.  It's quite interesting how close Matthew and Kayla are, despite there being gender differences.  It's actually quite amazing.  I imagine that they will start to grow apart once they start school, because Kayla will likely gravitate towards the girls in the class and Matthew towards the boys.  That will be interesting too, to see how they change with the introduction of school and more independence from me.

Matthew and Kayla are best friends.  They do everything together, by choice.  They play trains together, they play with stuffed animals together, they bath together.  What one does, the other does, too.  They both take turns 'leading' the play, it just varies, depending what they are doing and who is 'better' at that type of play.

They both go to bed at the same time, around 7:45/8:00pm, and sleep until 7:15am.

MATTHEW


Matthew weighs 36.6 lbs and is 42 7/8" tall.  He comfortably wears size 5 clothes and wears size  9 or 10 shoes (depends if Nathan has forced him to move up a size or not!).

Matthew is very passionate/enthusiastic/dramatic.  Whatever he does, he puts full emotion into it.  If he's excited, he's jumping up and down because he can't sit still.  If he's sad or upset, he's full-out crying.  If he's angry, he's pumping his fists down saying, "I'm mad!" and sometimes throwing the objects around him (which earns him an instant time-out!).

His favourite thing to do right now is play Go Fish, Uno, or Othello.  He's extremely quick to pick up the logic and strategic way to play games, and so he often wins, even against Jon or I.  This has also made him a poor loser, too.  We're working on that.

He still enjoys playing trains, but it has taken a backseat since the introduction of Paw Patrol.  He's seen every episode numerous times and can tell you exactly what happens in each one.  His favourite character is Zuma, and so his new favourite colour is Orange (Zuma's colour).

Matthew can count up to one hundred and is good at basic math.  He likes to 'play math' with me, where I use chocolate chips and marshmallows and do basic math equations and patterns with them, and they get to eat everything at the end.  

He has become a much better eater, and enjoys my cooking over Jon's due to the simplicity of my meals.  He still is a true Dutch-boy, favouring any sort of 'meat and potatoes' meal.  
He is great at listening to the Bible stories we read after dinner and can answer any question I ask him about what he had just heard.  He is even able to recall the basics of what happened in the story we read the prior evening.

Our largest frustration with Matthew is that he is lazy when it comes to dressing/undressing himself.  He tries to pretend that he can't do it and puts up a huge fit, hoping that either Jon or I will help him.  Most of the time, we don't.  He is fully capable of dressing and undressing, it's just a matter of him learning to exercise this independence.

He is learning how to read words, and can recognize and say, 
- the
- and
- it
- in
- on
- no
I've recently added
- if
- of
- a

Matthew can recognize and say the basic hours on the clock.

We are still working on his speech, and our largest focus with him right now is correcting his lisp.  He knows how to say 's' correctly, it's just a matter of it becoming second-nature for him now.  He has made huge improvement in the four months since he started speech therapy, and considering we have only had a handful of appointments he is doing well.


KAYLA

Kayla weighs 41.4 lbs and is 44 1/2" tall.  She is starting to wear size 6 clothes, and wears size 10 or 11 shoes.

Kayla continues to be an extremely easy child to parent.  She is seldom disobedient and is only put into time out once every month or two.  She is very even-keeled emotionally; she doesn't show extreme excitement, but she also doesn't get overly upset.

She loves to colour, whether it be in a colouring book or on a blank sheet of paper.  She's recently discovered all of my plastic tracers, and has been creating many pictures out of the traced items.  She can easily sit at the kitchen table and colour for an hour or two.


Kayla also loves to craft.  If I let her take out the craft box every day, she would, and she would spend hours gluing and taping things together.  She is always very intentional in how she puts her crafts together, and everything is put perfectly symmetrical if there is opportunity to, or the instructions are followed to a tee.  Kayla doesn't get near as much time to craft as she would like, solely because of my lack of desire to have the other kids do it too.  If she were an only child, she would love it!

In addition to colouring and crafting, Kayla loves to do school workbooks.  She likes writing things, and often asks me how to spell out words so that she can write them on paper.  Like Matthew, she absolutely loves Paw Patrol, so I currently have a list of all of the Paw Patrol characters written out and hanging up.

She is very independent and able to do almost anything asked of her.  She is my largest helper with Olivia because of this, but also because she loves her sister dearly.

Kayla is good at playing Go Fish and Uno, however, she does not like to play, she prefers to watch.  Every few days I force her to play with Matthew and I, in hopes that she changes her mind and begins to enjoy it.  I believe that she doesn't like to lose.  She is just as happy watching and helping her cousins play as she is playing herself.  At least if she watches she still learns the strategy!

She is really becoming confident at climbing different playgrounds.  We have so many different ones close to us that we try to explore a new one every now and then.

~ ~ ~

Last year, I started a tradition of videotaping Matthew and Kayla individually while I asked them a list of questions.  I asked them the same questions this year, and these are the responses I got (Kayla did not enjoy being put on the spot with the questions, and so she had a lot of "I don't know" answers):

1. What's your name?   Matthew
2. How old are you?   5
3. What is your favourite color?   Orange
4. What is your favourite toy?   My leap pad
5. What is your favourite fruit?   Banana
6. What is your favourite tv show or movie?   Paw Patrol
7. What is your favourite game?   Uno or Go Fish
8. What is your favourite animal?   Dog
9. What is your favourite song?   ABCs (He should have said "Awesome God")
10. What is your favourite book?   The ABC one (What?!?  He should have said "Fox in Socks" by Dr. Suess)
11. Who is your best friend?   Kayla
12. Who are you going to marry?   I don't know.
13. How many kids are you going to have when you are married?   5
14. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast?   Waffles
15. What is your favourite cereal?   Froot Loops
16. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?   Cheese and Crackers and Donuts (the one day Jon has to feed the kids lunch, this is what they had (after walking to Tim Horton's)...and now it's his favourite?!?!)
17. What is your favourite thing to eat for dinner?   Green mashed potatoes (our nickname for boerenkool)
18. What is your favourite thing to do outside?   Go on the trampoline at Grandma's
19. What is your favourite drink?   Juice
20. What is your favourite snack?   Cheese and meat on bread (??)
21. When is your bedtime?  8 o'clock
22. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My baby (he still sleeps with his doll)
23. What is your favourite holiday?   Waffle day (??)
24. What do you want to be when you grow up?   Work at the...with Dad (he was going to say work at the greenhouses, but corrected his answer)
25. Name one thing you do really well?   Listening
26. What makes you feel sad?   If they hit me
27. What makes you feel happy?  If they don't hit me
28. If you could choose a different name, what would you choose?   Zuma (from Paw Patrol)
29. Where do you want to go on vacation?   To Zuma Island (??).  Airplane to Disneyland.
30. What is your favourite thing to do?   Play with my friends
31. What is your favourite thing to do with Mom?   Play Uno
32. What is your favourite thing to do with Dad?   Play Othello
33. What's your favourite thing to do with your siblings?   Play with them, play toys

1. What's your name?   Kayla
2. How old are you?   5
3. What is your favourite color?  Pink
4. What is your favourite toy?   Leap pad
5. What is your favourite fruit?   Strawberries
6. What is your favourite tv show or movie?   Paw Patrol
7. What is your favourite game?   I don't know
8. What is your favourite animal?   Cat
9. What is your favourite song?   I don't know
10. What is your favourite book?   A Paw Patrol book we have.
11. Who is your best friend?  I don't know.  Remy and Carly.
12. Who are you going to marry?   I don't know
13. How many kids are you going to have when you are married?   2
14. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast?   Pancakes
15. What is your favourite cereal?   K: Mom, you know the yellow box at Grandma's house in the play food? Me: Corn Pops? K: Ya, that's it.
16. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?  Waffles
17. What is your favourite thing to eat for dinner?   Chicken Cordon Blues
18. What is your favourite thing to do outside?   Play
19. What is your favourite drink?   Pop
20. What is your favourite snack?   Little bit of everything (Cheerios, raisins, marshmallows, chocolate chips)
21. When is your bedtime?   I don't know
22. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?   I don't know (She doesn't necessarily have a favourite, but definitely likes to have her 'Noise Maker' (Soothe & Glow Seahorse)
23. What is your favourite holiday?   Noah's Ark day
24. What do you want to be when you grow up?   To work at the greenhouse.
25. Name one thing you do really well?   Climbing
26. What makes you feel sad?   I don't know
27. What makes you feel happy?   I don't know
28. If you could choose a different name, what would you choose?   I don't know
29. Where do you want to go on vacation?  I don't know...oh, the beach!
30. What is your favourite thing to do?   Watch tv
31. What is your favourite thing to do with Mom?   I don't know (She should have said to help me clean)
32. What is your favourite thing to do with Dad?   Wrestle him.

33. What's your favourite thing to do with your siblings?  I don't know.  Play with them.