Our summer is halfway over, and I couldn't be more surprised. Where did it go? Oh, I remember now. It went to sickness after sickness after sickness. Gag. There's just something very wrong about getting sick in the summertime! We keep managing to do it, though. We have recently battled 4 days of fever and an entire week of adenovirus with Barrett, two days of fever (likely the adenovirus) with Charlee, and now I seem to have contracted a lovely little (big) case of pink eye that more than likely stemmed from the adenovirus. Yuck is all I have to say about that. YUCK! Going on day 5 of it, and I have had to stop the googling because everything I read says I could have this for 3 weeks or more. I can not tell you how I will survive if it lasts that long! I won't go into all my other ailments. Oh how I can't wait to have my immune system back when this pregnancy is over.
Now on to the good stuff because honestly, who wants to focus on the bad, right? Nothing that bothers me more than a pessimist! :)
We had a wonderful visit with family last week for the 4th. My brother and his family were down this way for a visit from Maryland, and my sister and her family drove down from Starkville to spend the day with us. My mom was here, too, so we had a fantastic family day. It's very rare that our kids get to have that fun cousin time. I can remember with great detail the memories I have with visiting cousins because it was always a special occasion that didn't happen very often either. Those kids played non-stop, and very few tears were shed, which is usually a miracle in my house! Barrett did not want his cousins to leave, and he told me to put his carseat in my sister's van when they were leaving. :)
I potty-trained Charlee two years ago, I think it was right around the start of this blog. She was 2 1/2, and I probably would have tried sooner because she had been ready for a while, but she was in a class at school that didn't have facilities so it was pointless to try getting her to go at home when she couldn't at school. Barrett was in the same class this last year, so I decided to wait. Honestly, he has not been ready. I'm a big proponent of waiting until a child is ready before you potty-train rather than forcing it upon him/her just to say you potty-trained your child when he/she was x months old. Let's face it ~ it's just a headache on everyone when they aren't ready, and nowhere on their college application will it ask how early they were able to pee pee in the potty. :) Ha! It does help to not have to buy diapers, though, I'll give you that. I have been dreading it with Barrett, mainly because he's just so stubborn and I figured it would be a fight no matter when we started. Well, I started last week, and it was a bit of a fight at first. Even though he'd been going on the potty before baths, he wouldn't go anywhere near the thing when I wanted him to the first day. I don't do pull-ups except at night-time and nap-time, so I slapped the big boy underwear on him (I use the Gerber training pants at first). He liked them, but we were quickly running out of clean ones ~ yes, it was THAT kind of morning ~ so we just ditched them altogether. If you are my friend on facebook then you saw that picture, but I'll put it here, too, just because it's cute.
Finally, after almost a day of it, I switched the intended target to one outdoors. True redneck style. Low and behold, that was just the type of motivation he needed! He loved going to water the grass and asked to go nearly every 4 minutes. Luckily, I employed my little helper to go down the stairs of the deck with him each time because it was seriously wearing me out. She's all about earning money, candy, anything really for chores or tasks lately, so she was more than eager. When Chandler came home that night, he brought an old planter onto the deck so that Barrett could go in the "bucket" instead of going up and down the stairs every time. He has done remarkably well with the bucket! The poop is not there yet ~ shocker ~ but he has been saying, "I go poo poo on the toilet" and trying to go at least 8 times a day. That's progress! He really tries, too, and went three days without going at all because he still can't figure out how to do it yet. He had an accident last night, though. He's right back to trying today, and he's all about earning a bouncy ball from Wal-Mart when he does finally go. That's all he talks about! And when anyone else in the house poo poos on the toilet, he says, "Let's go Wal-Mart, get you bouncy ball!" Haha! I really am excited about his progress. He's doing so much better than I thought he would! We haven't had to leave the house for much in the last week, and this week is looking to be uneventful as well. Next week, however, we are hitting the road (pending the outcome of this pink eye situation), so pray that all goes well! Leaving the house during potty-training, and even for months after, is quite scary! Especially when your kid is only peeing outside. Gonna have to work on that this week.
Look at these cuties:
