Day 4: Still successful

I've been told I'm much more pleasant today.

I'm very envious of all my friends losing weight (you know who you are) and realized I need to get my ample-sized butt to the gym if I don't want to turn into a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon very soon (what with the non-smoking and increased snacking to offset the non-smoking.... eh, that was a better metaphor in my head). Moving along. Yep, I made it to the gym this morning. Didn't do a whole lot, but it was 45 minutes more cardio than yesterday.

AND... I finally got the ball rolling on Will's birthday party. I tried to reserve the venue; I successfully ordered his invites (20 cents/piece! And printed envelopes! And 3-day rush order!) and have begun purchasing some of the decorations/favors. I say tried to reserve the venue because apparently they're not accepting reservations this week. (This is not a high class resort where they have a waiting list; it's a rec center, complete with little old ladies playing bridge in the waiting room. I swear I heard one of them say "Picture it...Sicily, 1923") So it's at the same park as last year and hopefully the weather plays as nicely as last year too; if not, party at D-Dub's house!

Good-bye old friend

I did it.

I smoked my last cigarette. I have officially quit. I'm not pregnant.

Please congratulate me so I can read back on comments during moments of weakness when I invariably think "Gosh, $7 for a pack really isn't that bad".

Start now.

EDIT:
In all seriousness, thanks everybody--I really appreciate it.

Potty Update

Tomorrow is Will's Big Boy Day at his new school. That's the day where we no longer use pull-ups: everything is underpants. Ms. Dee (his teacher) has told us Will will have accidents; there will be lots of laundry at the end of every day. I'm supposed to bring a crapload of underwear and spare clothes--a second pair of shoes is optional, but a good idea. He will apparently have a Potty Mentor: a little boy from the 4 year-old class that will show him the ropes in the bathroom. Sidenote: none of this is new information. Will knows exactly what to do in a bathroom. We've been keeping him well informed.

Last night Will stayed completely dry for 13 hours. We put him in bed at 8:30, asleep at 9, he wandered into our room somewhere around 7am and we didn't get up until close to 10. That pull-up was as dry as when we first put it on. Also, when I did finally get him to sit on his potty chair, I have never seen (or heard) him produce so much urine.

During the day, if I ask him if he needs to go potty, the answer is always "No!". I've discovered the trick is to race him. Race him into the bathroom, race him to take off our pants, race him to pee first (Will always wins). This has yet to fail me, by the way. He always, always produces during these races.

Today I kept him in underwear after his nap. We went to a playground and shopping for birthday decorations. I remembered to keep a spare set of clothes in the car. We made it home dry and happy (even after drinking a cup of water). I was excited until I remembered that my child has the ability to hold it for thirteen flipping hours. I don't understand how he can ever have accidents at this rate.

Yes, I know it will happen. There will be stumbles and falling off the wagon. I'm just so excited for him. I'm excited for us to no longer have to budget in diapers/pull-ups into our monthly groceries. I feel bad that both sets of grandparents as well as we still have a practically full pack of these pull-ups.

Totally worth it, regardless of how well tomorrow goes.

Potty Training II: Pee Harder

He did it AGAIN!

I got home from work today and Will ran up to me, gave me a hug, a kiss and asked to go to the bathroom. Just what every parent wants. And then Jason said Will peed twice today at school. You know, on the potty chairs there; if it had just been in his diaper, it wouldn't be worth mentioning here.

I really haven't worried about the potty training too much up to this point. I figured that no child ever goes to college while still wearing diapers and that Will would let me know when he was ready. I'm not going into this with blinders on: we're still a long way away from big boy pants, but I'm just so damn proud of this kid. Seeing his little face light up when he's sitting on that tiny little toilet and he tells me it's coming is like no other feeling in the world.

I love being Will's mommy.

Another note: he learned to peddle his tricycle today. Eee!

SUCCESS!

Since I don't want to be featured on STFU, Parents I'm posting this here rather than on Facebook.

Will peed in the toilet today. Three times. After taking a bath.

I know several adults who still pee in the shower.

Soccer-a-no-go

Pele he is not.

So today was our first--and probably last--Spring soccer practice. Will did pretty well at the three drills he attempted, but he's not so much with the listening to directions. Any readers may have two minutes of "I Told You So"s starting now.

The coach, Amy, had said that all they wanted this age group to do is kick the ball in the goal. There we're good. Will kicked the ball as hard as he could towards the goal and everyone clapped. Then he needed a Bubba Water break (you can barely see the cup in his hands: it's bright pink).

The second drill was a run and kick. I believe soccer players actually call it "dribbling".

Please notice the approach. Will keeps the ball well within his limits and maintains control at all times. Too bad it's veering directly left of the actual goal.

He did make it in however:

He did start the afternoon in shin guards and would actually point them out to various people on the field. He'd also randomly shout out "I got shin guards!" at different points during practice. It reminded me of those stupid forwarded emails I got freshman year of college about how to freak people out in elevators: my favorite was "I've got new socks on."

Anyway, like I said, he did a few drills but always wound up running back to us crying and I spent most of the hour-long practice holding him. I had a feeling he wasn't developed enough for this (even though he was faaaar from being the smallest one of the ten) but figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot. So tomorrow I'll call and withdraw him and attempt to get our money back. We'll try again in the fall.

March 14, 2009

So yesterday was a bit of an exciting day.

I had gotten word on Friday night that Will's first soccer practice will be Monday evening at 6pm (first game is Saturday, March 28th). His coach mentioned that shin guards are required for all games, so yesterday morning we ventured into the world of sporting equipment and bought the boy some guards. I was worried that he'd hate wearing them, but apparently Will's got no issues.

Yesterday was also my SIL's birthday. As a joint birthday gift for herself and daughter, she purchased a bounce house. Yes, she did:

She swears it's the best $400 (!) she ever spent. The initial purchase was intended for Kylie's birthday party so all attendant kids could be in there at once. Still not sure how that's going to work out: the weight limit on it is supposedly 75 lbs, which means Will and Kylie combined just make it.

The two of them did have a blast and I'm thrilled that I don't have to shell out the money for it. Will was exhausted by the end of the evening, but he still had time for some ham:

Yes, that is his motorcycle and yes, it is on my furniture.

Like I mentioned, by the end of the night Will was pooped and ready to drop anywhere:
Also, this afternoon I got word that my new Varsity Cheerleader and soon-to-be-16-year-old niece, Alexis, and her daddy might make it up for a visit at some point this week. As Six Flags will undoubtedly be on the agenda, we'll have to remind Matt not to bring his keys.

You take the good, you take the bad...

You take them both and there you have The Facts of Life.

So today was fun.

Started out with a trip to the Ft. Worth Zoo with our friends the Harpers. We did the primate house fairly early on because I wanted to see how the other gorillas were reacting to their fallen comrade (answer to that being not well). We swung over to see the chimps where Jenny and I had ourselves giggling with our running commentary while watching a big chimp (who we were calling Mama Chimp) trying to discipline the smaller chimp (Junior). Mama was chasing Junior all around their area and we figured he was in trouble for hiding the bananas and bratty chimp sister must have told on him again; Mama kept seemingly reprimanding Junior and actually pointing at him to come down from his tree branch to where she was. Junior of course did—because how do you argue with an angry Mama Chimp?—and we assumed he would go directly into timeout.

That’s when Jenny and I realized we had the sexes backwards. And I hope to God that it really wasn’t any kind of familial relationship at all because Big Chimp slammed Little Chimp into the ground and started having literal hot monkey sex right there. In front of the big window where we were standing. With our children. Jovie, in her sweetest little 3 year old voice, turns to Jenny and asks why the big one was hurting the little one.

We finally began to wonder if we were attending the zoo during mating season. We have seen with our own eyes that female zebras are kept very happy physically (Jenny noted that since zebras have a black member they must actually be black with white stripes, thereby ending that age-old debate) and elephants have penises that are bigger than Will. We got to see four lion cubs feeding at their mother (Jovie: “Mommy, that’s how Julia’s going to eat”) and several kudus going at it. When we made it to the penguin exhibit I figured finally we would see some nice, wholesome penguin frolicking, but they just kept shitting in front of us.

Circle of life, indeed.

Here we go

We've been tossing the idea back and forth for a while now: moving Will to a Big Boy Bed. I've wanted to hold off for as long as possible in an effort to maintain that one last shred of infancy (bottles are gone, as are the jokes about his lack of teeth); also because I kind of liked having him caged and not able to get out of bed once we stuck him in there. Kind of my own sort of security blanket.

We were able to postpone the inevitable for a while for several reasons, number one of which is Will never attempted to get out of his crib on his own. Surprising, I know, given his penchance for running away. The second of which is we didn't (think we) have access to a nice twin size mattress--we didn't want to buy one because the crib we bought way back when converts to a nice full size bed and I didn't want to have buy a twin now and then a full size later and then be stuck with a twin mattress that I would then have nothing to do with. (Damn, that's a LONG sentence). Because, if you've ever been to my house, you'd understand that the last thing we need is more large furniture.

Anyway, my MIL swept in and saved the day as she often does and volunteered a mattress my sister used to have. So Jason carted it home with him after Grampa Day today and we put it together during the evening. I've gotta say Will's room has never looked better. It's so clean. I mean I washed baseboards.

So finally, we started bedtime ritual as normal. Took a bath, drank some milk, crawled onto the countertops to steal M&Ms from the bowl I keep up there for rewards (NOTE: that's been changed) and whacked the ping pong ball around the kitchen a while.

7:50 Reading with Daddy

8:05 Reading with Mommy (please notice it's after 7pm so I become Mommy)

8:20 Mommy puts Will in bed. Will stands up and cries. We sing ABCs one more time with him doing his little sit-dancing in my arms.

8:25 Mommy puts Will back in bed while he cries and whines for blanket on. I'm really not sure what he means when he says this as he's completely covered from literal head to toe. Continuously rub his back to try to get him to sleep.

8:30 Try to leave with Will yelling at me to put his damn blanket on.

8:40 Glorious Daddy goes in to get him calm.

8:45 Glorious Daddy walks back out after having successfully gotten the crown prince to sleep.

So in summation, while Will has shunned Glorious Daddy all week long, he apparently loves him enough to feel comfortable and loved in return to drift off into sleepyland. Or GD bored him.

Now it's 9:20pm and we've yet to hear a peep. Wish us luck.

Give the boy a hand

Yesterday when picking Will up from daycare, I asked his teacher if she'd mind changing his diaper before we left. This was the gist of the conversation:


Me: Hi [Teacher], would you mind changing Will's diaper before we go? I forgot my diaper bag and we have to run some errands.


Teacher: Well, he just used the potty not 10 minutes ago. He was productive.


M: I'm sorry, what?


T: Yeah, he's pretty good about using the potty here. He woke up from his nap with a dry diaper all last week.


M: Seriously, what?


So, apparently Tiny has been having "productive" potties while at daycare. I attribute this to peer pressure and the little miniature adult toilets the school has. Jason and I have come to the consensus that our potty chair is too small for Will and we'll be searching for a different one with a larger receptacle: Will's testicles will thank us.


Now, don't be getting excited about all this. There are still days when Will doesn't get to the potty in time and Teacher has to use a change of clothes. They're very nice and wash out the offending garment and return it to us in the evening. Just usually not like this:

GENIUS I tell you!

Guess who woke up this morning and could count to 10? That's right---me!

Will's teacher (and parents) have been working pretty diligently on the whole counting thing and he could always get started (1, 2...) and then would hit somewhere in the middle (7, 8...) and then nail the landing (10! complete with clapping). This morning, he hit everything in between, with little to no help from Mommy. Helluva way to start the morning.

And yes, we're Mommy and Daddy now. Love.

I wuf ew too

I realize that title is a little "I can has cheezburger", but it's fitting.

On Saturday evening, June 28th, David William Carter told me he loves me. Yes, it was prompted in the manner of "God, Will, you're so flipping cute. I love you so much."

His response: I wuf ew (he nodded his head and gave his cute little smile while saying it).

Yes, I teared up. Yes, Jason got a bit jealous. To my knowledge, Will has yet to tell Daddy he loves him. Heh. It's only fair.

Caddyshack 2: Eccentric Poopaloo

It was cute the first time. Mainly because I made Jason clean it up. The second time? I'm stuck scrubbing the poop deck and it's not nearly as cute. It wasn't quite as.... firm as last time. The Baby Ruthness of it wasn't present. This is really going to slow down the visitation at Casa de Carter if potential visitors think the tub might have recently been confused with a very large bidet.

I think Will was trying to give me cues. Last time he just stopped playing and started pushing; this time he repeatedly tried to get out of the tub, even though we were nowhere close to being done (Yes, even Will's bathtime has a routine; it works for us). Looking back at it, his face clearly said "OK, lady, you're asking for it".

Today was also Picture Day at school. Some of you may know that Will doesn't usually participate in this b/c School has the photographers come on Thursday when Will isn't there. Not this time, though: this time, Picture Day was Wednesday! Having been given advance notice, I dressed Will in a Cute Outfit: light blue polo shirt, light brown cords--it was cold this morning, shut up--and argyle socks. You are allowed to make fun of me for the argyle socks. When I dropped him off, his fellow BBRmates were in the midst of the picture-taking festivities, one little boy dressed in his sweater vest (!) sitting quietly in the center of artfully arranged, scary-large Crayolas. I was excited for Will's picture moreso with the bruise on his cheek.

Sidenote: Will had his first Accident Report at School yesterday. He fell against a lightweight bookshelf and has a shadow of a bruise on his cheek. The timing was perfect since it was just in time for Picture Day and I can have a shot of Will next to the one of Toddler Me wearing boxing gloves and sporting a black eye. I'm obviously not very worried about his Accident Report.

Anyway, I left Will happy and in line for Pictures in his cute little frat-boy-meeting-his-girlfriend's-parents Sunday best. When Jason picked him up, Will was wearing his spare clothes. Apparently he pitched a fit whenever the photographers tried to get a shot of him, so Will is still without pictures and his perfect little outfit is covered in strawberry yogurt.

Man, I really built that story up with very little for the ending. I fear that Bethany Stories will now be replaced as Jill Stories.

Oh COME ON!

It's been a busy week for Will's friends. Violet said her first word. Kylie took her first steps. Congrats to both you girls; we're incredibly happy for (and proud of) you both.
On the Violet note, however, I'd like to personally ask V's mom to reign in the "Mama" talk in front of me please. My genius boy can say the following (note to self: add to Thesauras):
Milk (yes it sounds exactly like shoe, but he's usually pointing to his cup and/or fridge while saying it)
Outside
Bubble
JoJo
but will not say Mama. This breaks my heart a little.