All in Good Time.....

After months and months of painfully slow and steady progress on the potty training front, Jonathan is finally there.

He FINALLY tells us when he needs to pee pee and even when he's in the POOL, which I'm super impressed with!

Poop is an entirely different story (sigh), but we're working on it and he is motivated by his big reward of getting to camp out in Simon's room.  I'm still hopeful we'll wrap the whole thing up by the time school starts, but even if he's still not quite 100%, I at least know he'll tell his teacher he needs to peepee, which is a huge step from last year where I had to rely on the teacher to remember to make him go and when things got busy, that didn't always happen.

Still needs a Pullup at night because that's hit or miss, especially when he sleeps in a little.

After this, it will be time to tackle the binky.... but one thing at a time!

He is a stubborn one!

Name-O...

I was putting Jonathan's school picture in his little school memory book a little while ago and there's a whole page to fill out his "favorites" of that particular school year. Filled in all the blanks and got to the bottom where it says: "This is how I write my name". I thought about just writing it for him or letting him scribble, but he has shown an interest in writing actual letters lately and has mastered a couple of the easier ones. He was in the right mood too, so I handed him a pen. "Can you write your name?" I asked.

"I don't know the letters in it!" he replied.

"Well, first comes a J. Do you know how to write a.... " and before I could finish the sentence he had written a not-so-terrible interpretation of a J. I knew he could write an O, so I called out that one, then said "N .... do up down up down." Not bad! "A" was a little more challenging and I held his hand steady, but he made the letter himself. "T" was all on his own, "H" is one of the letters he has mastered, another "A" (help with that one) and "N" again.

Not bad for a little guy who just turned three! :) Mommy was impressed! :)

First Tooth! :)

The boys ran out of the parent pickup line yesterday and as Simon was talking, I noticed he was missing a bottom tooth!   I knew it was loose, but didn't think it was THAT loose.

"You lost your tooth!" 

"Oh! Yeah... I lost it at lunch. I couldn't find it!" Oh my... he was so casual about the whole thing. I guess I'm still traumatized about Ben's reaction to losing his first few teeth because I was bracing myself for craziness.  

So he actually LOST the tooth. Boo! 

He says it just fell out of his mouth onto the floor and went missing. SImon was very nonchalant about it all.  He came home and wrote a quick explanation to the tooth fairy that said, "I lost my tooth at lunch." 

The tooth fairy was NOT quite ready for that tooth to come out, but she was able to scrounge together some quarters! ;)

She better stock up though because the other bottom one is, apparently, also an "any day now" situation and he says the top ones are loose now too. OMG! WHen it rains, it pours with the loose teeth around here! 

No More Naptime...

Jonathan has officially given up his nap...

That is all....

Sigh.

First VIsit to the Dentist!

Jonathan went to the dentist for the first time today! He climbed up in the chair like a pro and said "ah!"  Got his teeth counted and cleaned and then checked by the dentist. :)

He joined the "no cavities!" club and got to spin the wheel and pick a prize from the prize box! (he chose a beaded necklace and a little airplane) ;)

He did a great job and will regale you with stories about the dentist's office if you ask. LOL! Success!

He's Got It!

So Simon went back out when Tom got home and practiced some more on his two-wheeler. And again two days later (it rained in between). That night he went all the way around our neighborhood ring with Tom jogging alongside.

He did that again yesterday morning with me. (the quarter-mile jog in sandals almost killed me... I REALLY need to start working out) Then yesterday afternoon he went out and practiced by himself. He came back in triumphantly to tell me that he had gone around completely around the ring.

By late afternoon, he was zooming around with Ben and the neighbor like he'd been riding a two-wheeler his whole life. He has figured out turns and stops without falling off and everything! 

So the first two have certainly been easy on us with the two-wheel bike riding milestone. LOL! I really didn't expect Simon to want to try it this year. Figured next spring or summer. I underestimated him! :) He surprised me!

So proud of him! :)

Two-Wheelin'

Simon decided yesterday he wanted the training wheels off his bike. I've quietly suggested here and there throughout the summer that he was ready to maybe give it a try. He gets SO frustrated that he can't keep up with Ben and our neighbor with his training wheels on.

Well, I guess yesterday, he had finally had a enough because he came marching into the kitchen from outside, "I want you to take the training wheels off my bike now!"

I dropped what I was doing and went outside. It's so rare he wants to take on a challenge, especially a physical one! I didn't want to miss the opportunity.

I took the wheels off, set him up in the middle of the driveway, pointed him toward the backyard and set him free. And then? He just DID it! He still can't turn very well and dismounting is challenging... but he has the balance part of it!

He worked at it for awhile and then took a break. When Tom got home he worked at it some more and ended up going the furthest he has gone yet! All the way across the front yard and down the hill!

Today I need to convince him to try the driveway a little more. He asked to put the training wheels back on yesterday evening, but there is no going back now!

My Baby Fish!

This is all he wants to do at the pool now.

At swim lessons, Ms. Tara has been trying to teach him to "look at the sky" to breathe, but no luck... so he can only go short distances until he runs out of breath. ;)  By next summer though, he's going to be all over the pool! He should also be able to touch the bottom by then. :) So funny to watch such a tiny kid swim with no floaty! It makes me laugh!

Also? He was 35 months old on the 25th and I owe him a blog post. I just haven't had time to sit down and write it! This may end up serving as his month-day post. He swims a lot. He also asks "why" incessantly these days... takes it a dozen levels down.

"Why does that sign say caution?"
"Because the floor is wet"
"Why is the floor wet?"
"Because people walked on it with wet feet"
"Why did they have wet feet?"
"Because they were in the pool."
"Why were they in the pool?"
"Because it's hot outside."
"Why is it hot outside?"
"Because it's summer"
"Why is it summer?"
"Because our hemisphere of the earth is closer to the sun right now."

(I usually go with the ultra-scientific answer to end the questioning... in this case, he quit because he couldn't say "hemisphere" so he got distracted and went back to swimming. LOL!!)

Summer Saturday....

I have discovered it really is best to keep the kids busy... way less whining that way. It used to be hard when Jonathan was younger, but we have hit a pretty good groove lately. Loving his current age... :)

Anyway, so yesterday, despite an ominous-looking sky, we headed off to the pool. It was definitely the right decision because it never rained and we even got a few breaks in the clouds where the sun shined on us. The boys swam and had some lunch and we took them home to relax for awhile and let Jonathan nap. 

Ben and I went and checked out a place where he can do swim team in the fall. It was awesome! He can swim without us belonging there, but it's more expensive, so I think we may do a family membership to get the price break and so the little boys and I can swim while he practices. That will also let us go swim all winter as a family... that would be an awesome activity to have in my back pocket on those long, cold, dark days/evenings. Ben LOVED it there and just kept saying, "I want to swim. Can we swim?"  And he didn't balk when I talked to the guy about swim team, so he REALLY wants to do it! While we were waiting for them to come back with some papers, he was even talking about "When I come here for swim team practice...." LOL!!!

After we got home, we headed off to see Despicable Me 2. It was adorable and I will admit, I cried at the end. LOL!  And also laughed so hard at the minions doing Boys 2 Men. HILARIOUS. 

It was 6:30 by the time the movie was over and all of our usual go-to dinner places in the town center were packed, so we did Noodles instead. The boys were thrilled... it's the one place we go where Jonathan doesn't get grilled cheese AND eats everything on his plate. Love Noodles.

On the ride home (around 7:30), Ben pipes up from the backseat, "So what are we gonna do now?" Oh my! That one, like the Energizer Bunny, would just keep going.  I told Tom Ben is his best chance at a fireworks buddy when we go to Disney and the fireworks don't start until 11 p.m. since it's summertime!! LOL! We came home and they played outside for awhile and had some ice cream. 

The funniest part of the evening came when I walked out to the driveway with the ice cream and came upon Jonathan pedaling his trike around like he had been doing it his whole life. 

"Cool!" I said to Tom. He's pedaling! How'd you get him to do that?" 

Tom's reply? "I was going to ask you the same question!"

LOL! No idea when or how he learned to pedal then.... but he can pedal now! So funny... gotta love third kids! Now, if he would just potty train himself?

After the kids went to bed, I spotted this neat sky/cloud and watched it until the sun set. :)

Home Alone...

In the summertime, Ben always hates having to make Safeway runs in the mornings. Whines and complains. Asks how many things I have to get. Blah blah blah. So starting this summer, after talking to some other friends with kids his age, I started offering to let him stay home. (Safeway is only 30 seconds away and I'm only ever gone a half hour or so) He'd always say no. But every time, I'd offer. Well, finally yesterday, he took me up on it. I was shocked when he said, "YES!" "You sure?" "Yes!" "You're not going to get scared?" "Nope... gonna sit here and play my DS."

I put his iPod Touch next to him and told him to text me if he needed anything. Taped my cell phone number to the back of the phone and put that next to him too. "Okay! We'll be right back! You SURE you want to stay here?"

"Yep."

Out the door we went. Came home a half hour later and it was a success. He was right where I left him.

Then I was putting groceries away and noticed the pantry door was open and there was white powder all over the floor. Weird. I hadn't baked or anything that morning...

"Ben?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened over here?"

"What?"

"Why is the pantry open?"

He wandered over and stood next to me, apparently also studying the scene.

"Oh."

"'Oh', what? What did you do while I was gone?"

"Um... this..." he said, and pointed to an open bag of powdered sugar on the shelf. Apparently he had helped himself to a handful of sugar as soon as I left.

"Seriously? You ATE powdered sugar?"

"Well, It was really.... yum!" he replied, grinning from ear to ear.

Sigh. After that we had an obligatory talk about trust and how if he's going to have the privilege of staying home when I run out, he can't do things he knows he's not supposed to do. He nodded and understood... I think.

I have to admit though, I was secretly kind of amused and wished I could have seen how it went down. It was like he just couldn't help doing SOMETHING "forbidden" while he had the house to himself... so a handful of sugar was the first thing that came to mind. LOLOLOL!! And I love that that's the first thing that came to mind... so innocent and kinda cute.  (does it make me a horrible mom that it made me laugh? When I recounted the story to Tom later, he thought I should have punished him....)

This Just In!

Simon has a loose tooth! :) He's pretty psyched about this! :)

It's funny... I found out the same way I did with Ben. Randomly, Simon just said, "My tooth feels weird." I knew exactly what it was!!!! So excited for him. Most of his little friends have already lost teeth.

Big Deal...

We were at the pool really early today and there was hardly anyone else there. I could tell Ben was itching to take the deep-end test (he has been working up to it for a few days now, ever since the Fourth of July party at Uncle Marc and Aunt Krystyna's where he figured out he could manage deep water and diving boards), but was worried he wouldn't be able to tread water long enough.

My friend Beth graciously took him out to the deep and, practiced for a minute or two with him, and then flagged the lifeguard down before Ben could change his mind. He took the test and passed it in about a minute like it was no big deal!!!

He was SO proud of himself and spent the rest of the day going off the diving board with his friends. :)

He has grown up so much just since summer started... so proud of him. :)

I snapped the pic right after he passed and after his first jump off the diving board. :) He was euphoric!!

That Moment....

...when your five-year-old realizes he has enough sight words/sound-out skills to read part of one of his very own books.  Oh and yes, it's painfully slow and tedious and he quickly tires of the huge mental effort of the whole thing.  But there is no mistaking the proud look on his face. :)

This moment brought to you by the cover and first three pages of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  :)

I think this is one of my all-time favorite milestones.

First Half Day....

Simon had a fantastic first mommy-free day yesterday! He came bounding out of the back entrance of the classroom, sticker-clad and smiling.

"What was your favorite thing today?" I asked him on the way to the parking lot.

His answer? "EVERYTHING!!!"

He loved every minute of it, it seems and, later, at dinner, gave us the play-by-play.

The highlights, according to Simon:

* We had a fire drill
* We sat on the rug and mine is the orange square right behind Quinn
* There is a girl named Piper
* I got to eat lunch in the cafeteria and I ate everything!
* I had library and that was so fun!
* We read a book about fire safety and it wasn't funny, just a learning book
* I made a new friend named Ashton!


All in all, a great day and now I am feeling good about the year. I got an update from Mrs. Terry (our librarian friend) a few hours into the school day. Simon had just left her class. She said they were all good and that it's a really cute little class.  Love having insiders to spy on my kids!! ;)

Can't wait for tomorrow... half day, whole class! Wahoo! He wants to be dropped off in the car loop too! :)

ETA: This just in. Mrs. Terry let it slip today that Simon was um... shall we say... a little chatty in library class. LOL!  Not really surprised. He'll figure out the rules eventually though! ;)

School Open House...

The boys were pretty excited about their school open house yesterday... or rather, Ben was. Simon kinda forgot where we were going and I had to remind him three times on the way out the door.

They were all smiles on the ride though. I was laden with everyone's various school supplies and classroom donations, but thankfully, no Jonathan, thanks to my mom who stayed back at the house with him.

We had to wait outside the school for awhile until the principal opened the doors, then it was a mad rush for the classrooms.

We started with Ben's class, figuring it would be best to be able to hang out in Simon's room a little longer. I hadn't brought the paper with the room number and had no idea what the teacher looked like, so we just wandered down the hall peeking in all the third grade rooms until a teacher asked if we were looking for her and in we went.

Ben's desk is in the very back corner by the classroom door. I didn't say anything, but I can promise that won't last long. He always ends up front and center by the second week of school... every. single. year. He's chatty and also focusing is not his strong suit. He does his best work when he's sitting up front and the teachers always figure that out quickly. ;)

Speaking of teachers, his teacher this year, Mrs. C, is absolutely lovely. She's about my age, I think. Very friendly and casual.... I instantly liked her a lot. I also liked that she mentioned she has Ben almost all day. The only time he leaves her class is for reading (and specials, obviously) Third grade is when they start having different teachers for every class and there was the potential for four different switches throughout the day, meaning four different classrooms, four different desks, and four different teachers to remember to turn in homework to. Gah. I was relieved to hear he only had one switch. He'll do great with the stability. :)

We snapped a pic at his desk, checked out who else is in his class... turned out most of his favorite friends from last year are with him. YAY! And then off we went to Kindergarten....

Simon skipped down the kindergarten hallway. We chanted "kindergarten here we come! kindergarten here we come" all the way there. He was smiling and excited. THEN we walked into the classroom and his teacher greeted him and he SHUT DOWN.

I haven't seen surly Simon in months and months. He has been polite and friendly and sweet all summer long and had definitely turned a corner the last couple months of preschool. But, surly Simon came back in full force yesterday.... he scowled at the teacher and hid behind me.  (now, just for the record, his teacher is WONDERFUL... she is not in the least bit scary, mean, or unfriendly...)

I peeled him off of my leg, so I could move forward and grab the parent handout sitting on the table. The student teacher/aide greeted him. He scowled some more.

We moved on to check out the classroom. He saw a Lego table and that made him happy. He also saw some magnifying glasses and seashells that he thought were really cool. He was back to normal for a good long while...

I decided we should probably head out and say our goodbyes. The teacher cheerily handed him a copy of a worksheet that had been set out on the tables for the kids to do. "He can do this at home if he'd rather...and bring it back in Monday." 

He flipped his lid.

"That's HOMEWORK! I don't want to do homework!!! I'm NOT doing HOMEWORK." Growl growl.

I wanted to crawl into a hole.  Incidentally, I blame Ben for this and his three years of whining about homework....

I got down on eye level and talked to him. He eventually noticed that his friend Quinn was sitting at the table working on his worksheet and decided he wanted to do it there.  I thought we were making progress....

"Okay, first it says to write your name." I said, handing him a blue crayon.

"I don't know HOW to write my name."

Lies. He does.

He drew a picture of himself instead and then insisted he now had no room to write his name.

Eventually, I convinced him to write a reasonable version of "SIMON" around the picture he had drawn.

Then we had to fill out and draw his favorite things to do around the flower petals on the sheet.  It was like pulling teeth, but eventually, I got, "Wii, DS, Swimming, Riding my Bike, and Ninjago."

Whew.

I sent him up to turn it in to the teacher and then it hit me. This scowly thing is him being nervous. 
Look at the body language in this photo.... the reality of all of this JUST hit him and when it comes down to it... he's still just a "little kid". He looks SO small to me in this picture... I could just cry.

Poor kiddo. Sometimes I forget he's only five because he acts and talks like such a bigger kid most of the time since he hangs out mostly with Ben.  I have to remind myself that this is all new for him... the classroom, the teacher, the expectations. He needs as much coddling and preparation as his older brother got, even if it isn't obvious. 

So this weekend, we will drag out all the books about starting Kindergarten and have some chats about how things will go. We talked about it casually all summer (and well before that), but he's been so cool about it, I hadn't really felt like I needed to make a huge deal.

I have two days to make the huge deal.  

Anyway... so I have high hopes for a fantastic year all around. Ben's situation couldn't be better. Simon is in well-exerienced, kind, and patient hands, and, if all else fails, he has his good buddy Quinn by his side. 

Monday... here we come! 

Happy Guy!

Jonathan seems to have turned some kind of corner over the last week. The tantrums have gone WAY down, he's all around jolly most of the day, he listens, he sits... just yesterday, we had "chill time" in the late afternoon before Tom got home and he and Simon and I snuggled under blankets on the couch and watched The Lorax together. He actually SAT. And watched. And commented on things he liked.

The speech teacher explained to me on Wednesday, after observing some of these changes for herself, and seeing some new things from him during their work together, that sometime between 9 and 24 months the frontal lobe begins to "light up" and this crazy amount of development happens all at once. I told her he has been waking up a couple times a night lately... much like babies do when they are getting ready to crawl or walk and wondered if that had anything to do with it. She thinks I'm probably on to something. The wakings were all in the last two weeks and the new developments have all been in the last week.  Interesting stuff!

She also noted during their play that he's now doing thing thing called "crossing the midline", which means he'll reach to the opposite side for something, (that link is an interesting one and explains why this skill is important) whereas,  he used to mostly just use whatever hand was closest to reach something. Apparently it's a sign this frontal lobe thing is happening and that a toddler is beginning to use both sides of their brain at the same time. Up until this happens, babies only use one side at a time... I'm sure that's the simplified explanation... but kinda cool, no?

Anyway, all this to say, he's like a different kid in many ways now. He's not as frustrated. He's talking a ton and initiating the talking, not just repeating. Amazing what a difference a few weeks can make. He's even more coordinated... less running at full speed and landing on his face, which he was doing a lot of in the months prior.

All good stuff and so fun for a science/psychology dabbler like me. ;)

Milestone... of Sorts...

I was on the phone with my mom yesterday afternoon and had put Jonathan down for a "wishful thinking" late afternoon second nap about a half hour prior. He had been completely quiet, so I thought it was a success.

I was mid-sentence when I heard a door open, then close and saw a diapered toddler run down the hallway laughing maniacally.

It so caught me off guard that my brain took a good ten seconds or so to process what had actually happened and who the diapered child was.

I caught him, immediately popped him back in the crib and said, "Show me how you did that."

And he did. Three more times.

An hour later, I removed the side of the crib and made it a toddler bed, figuring he may not stay in it, but he's clearly not going to stay in the crib either so at least this way he can't hurt himself. I also gated the top of the stairs, moved his bookshelf (which he has taken to climbing so he can play with the light switch in his room) and set up video surveillance.

So he spent his first night in his "big boy bed" last night and actually stayed there. However, at 6:20 this morning, instead of happily lolling around in his bed, playing with his aquarium and books, he appeared in my bedroom, duckie and binkie in hand and asking for milk.

Naptime lasted about 45 minutes today before I saw him make his escape over the video monitor.

Some who have traveled this road before have suggested just making his whole room a crib and putting a child-proof knob on the other side of the door and I think it won't be long before I do that.  I NEED an extended break from this child every day for my own sanity.

No... this just won't do. This won't do at all...

(cry)

So Far, So Good, Random Stuff and Almost Beach Time!

This is the first year Ben has actually been into summer reading! I really think it's that the school librarian told them they had to do it and signed them up at school. In his mind, that makes it completely black and white, no question, done deal. AWESOME.

We have been back to the library once already for one of the four stickers and I think we'll be back before we leave for vacation for yet another one.

Bridge books are going well too. I took a clue from the above fact and told him the pages get turned into the third grade teachers. Voila. Compliance. And since Ben is into it, Simon LOVES them... he feels like such a big kid when he sits down to do his "homework." :)

In other news, Ben hit a HUGE milestone at swimming lessons yesterday and swam all the way across the pool!!!!! The teacher pushed him a little more each time. She kept looking over at me to make sure I had seen how far he got and I could tell she knew he could do it. So the third time, she just kept backing up and he just kept going!!! He was pretty proud of himself. :) I wish I had gotten a photo after, but I was busy chasing crazy monster baby.

We are headed to the beach this coming week for Shark Week 2012. Yep. Big surprise that is the theme this year. ;) Sometimes I feel guilty that Simon is just along for the ride with Ben's obsessions, but he doesn't seem to mind and gets as into it as Ben does for however long it takes to run its course. Yesterday, they played with the Playmobil boat stuff for THREE HOURS, meticulously setting it up all up Simon's bedroom floor and recreating pirate and shark attacks.  It was SO sweet....

Anyway, stay tuned for the traditional beach pictures - Ripley's big tire, boys digging in sand, 156 pictures trying to get one of all thee boys in front of the dunes looking at me and smiling....

Can't wait! :)

The Swimcap...

We've had a major hurdle to overcome with Ben and swimming lessons... which is really the biggest reason he is eight years old and still can't really swim. The kid has had ear infections since he was younger than Jonathan... like, a LOT of ear infections. So many that he has had two sets of ear tubes placed and his adenoids removed.

Now, I have never had ear tubes before, but I am told that when you have an ear tube and water gets into your ear, the pain is excruciating. He used to totally spaz in the bathtub when water got into his ear and I thought he was just being dramatic, until my friend who was older when she got tubes imparted this knowledge upon me. Mom of the year award for me!

Needless to say, the water in the ear thing happened enough times that he got REALLY paranoid about water possibly getting in there, to the point where going under water was his worst fear.

I got the pediatrician to reassure him at his visit in March that he know longer had holes inside of his ears for water to get into and that it would no longer hurt... but, Ben didn't buy it.

I was proud of him though at swim lessons this time around when he faced his fear and went under water when the teacher asked him to. HUGE breakthrough on that. I could tell he was still fearful though.  We tried earplugs, but he thought they were uncomfortable and they wouldn't stay in.

When we got to SIMON'S swim lesson on Wednesday, our friend who swims before him was wearing a swim cap. I asked her mom about it and she said that her daughter had been having ear infections and the water was really bothering her ears... apparently the swim cap had worked wonders. I suggested it to Ben and he was ALL OVER this idea.

Hence, this at yesterday's lesson.

The difference? NIGHT AND DAY. He actually swam... like REALLY swam. Face in the water, underwater, breaststroke, whole deal. He was so proud of himself.

:)

Now, the true test will see what he does at the regular pool today in the absence of the swim instructor....

But I think we've turned a corner!! :) YAY!

Last Day of Preschool...

Today is a bittersweet day -- Simon's very last day of preschool ever. I know it's cliche, but I honestly can't believe how fast it all went. The time truly FLEW and I  can vividly remember his FIRST day ever.  He was so excited to finally not be dragged out of there like he was the year before every morning when we dropped of Ben.

Thankfully, I'm not as teary over this big milestone as I would be if I didn't have another one coming right up behind him to start in the fall.

Simon took it all in stride. He knows he's going to be at school with big brother Ben and with his friend Quinn next year (and probably 95% of his other 4s preschool classmates... some of which I would be happy to leave behind, quite frankly... but annnnyway). So he's excited for what's ahead, I think, as am I. We had a good second run at Chestnut Grove and it's time to move on to kindergarten for yet another one of my boys!

First Day of 2s...

Last Day of 4s

Last Day of 4s

First Day of 2s

Annoyed with myself that I don't have a "first day of 2s" shot in front of the doors... but anyway... here is my little ham on the way in this morning... :)