Ladies First
Cora has given us a beautiful gift. She is now potty trained!! We were at the point of feeling we'd tried everything (i.e. we were actually giving her money every time she was willing to go to the potty, pennies, but still!). We had it in mind we'd make one more push over Mardi Gras break, but Cora woke up one Saturday morning and declared she wanted to wear her big girl undies. (Undies that we'd owned for months and which at one point I had strung across the bathroom on a colorful ribbon to highlight their coolness to no avail.) It was a busy day where we were going to be out and about, but I wasn't about to squash her interest. We left the house in her big girl undies with a big talk about keeping them dry. She made it through that entire day without an accident. The next day, we wore them to church. Then to school all week. She had minor daily accidents, but her teacher felt like she was close and encouraged us to keep sending her with a change of clothes. This support was invaluable and we pushed through a second weekend. The second week of undies at school went better. Then came Mardi Gras (for non-New Orleanians, probably NOT the best time to try to fully potty train your child!) but we kept up the big girl undies and resisted the urge to go with the safer pull-up option. Cora didn't have any accidents and had the opportunity to HAVE to poop out and about. This led to one funny episode at a friend's house, but ended with her pooping in (their) potty for the first time.
After a few weeks, we were still putting her in a diaper at nap time, but noticed that she was doing all her pooping in these diapers, rather than on the potty. So we were brave again and started putting her down for nap in her big girl undies. This has led to not a lot of napping, but a whole lot of trips to her potty to poop. We'll even find she's gotten up, gone all by herself, and dumped the little potty into the big potty all by herself. (A habit we're discouraging for obvious reasons.)
But the beautiful end result? We have a fully potty trained little girl!!
That same little girl is infrequently napping, still a challenge to get to sleep at night, and still having some night terrors. But hey, she can't spoil us right?
One more Cora anecdote. Never one to be able to make the "c/k"
Big Brother
Jack has a major strength which shines in contrast to Cora's big weakness. We put him in bed. We don't see him again for 12 hours. She wakes up five times screaming and crying? He never stirs. He's one champion sleeper.
This is probably a result of he lives his days full force. He has thrived in the Waldorf Kindergarten. I find it a very developmentally appropriate program and the 90 minutes he is outside each morning allows him lots of opportunities to run, play, and get energy out. He also loves the daily and weekly routines and the order it gives his week. His favorite day is Tuesday because that's Game Circle day at school. His least favorite day is Thursday because that is Vegetable Soup day. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that his dad makes him take whatever vegetable we have on hand, rather than letting him pick. So Jack brings in things like collard greens thus ensuring he knows there's going to be at least one vegetable in the soup he doesn't like.
On the other hand, this child remains quite the healthy eater, with some strong opinions. He eats most anything (all fruits, fresh salads, many raw vegetables, meats, anything dairy, etc.) but flips his lid when he sees green things in a cooked dish. You can't convince him that parsley or green onions aren't going to kill him. Chief on his dislikes list are tomatoes, cooked greens, onions, and rice. I think Jacob's standards tend to be a little high (on Jack AND me) and think a child who scarfs down raw broccoli, cooked brussels sprouts, and begs for fruit all day is not one to be hard on when it comes to food.
Jack's main interest these days is his "Jack and Annie" Magic Tree House collection of books and CDs. From Santa, he got a starter set of Magic Tree House books + we checked out some of these same books on CD from the library. Santa also gave him a CD player. Well we now have to set limits on the CD player because he's happy to spend hours listening to his stories while building "vehicles" with his "big boy LEGOs." This makes daily rest time easy as he's happy to play in his room for an hour with his LEGOs. Jacob and I continue to read him multiple books each day. He usually has two chapter books going, one with Jacob and one with me.
The Grown-Ups
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| 37+ weeks |
And things are going really well on the brewery front: bank loan secured and likely location secured. It's a process that helps remind us of the value of patience. Jacob continues to take on side consulting projects which keeps his income coming in.
And project "get ready for baby" is pretty much complete. I'm happy with where I'm able to leave things at my job, with as much set up for the next school year as possible. And my house has never been cleaner or more organized. After months of feeling like I was getting NOTHING accomplished (i.e. most of 2014), I got a major surge of energy and cabinets, closets, and drawers are purged and organized, my baseboards got their first cleaning in three years, and rooms have been rearranged, ready for Luke and Cora.
And now I get to work on what's hardest for me: dwelling in the moment, being patient, not trying to rush or control things...in other words, waiting for Baby Luke to make his entrance.
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